The siege of Kut-al-Amara 1915-1916

[Dust Jacket Collector]

On 05/08/2016 at 15:43, Dust Jacket Collector said:

One of the most graphic accounts of the Garrisons sufferings is given in a little book of mine I've mentioned previously in the 'Rarest Book' thread.

"The Sufferings of the Kut Garrison on their march into Turkey as Prisoners of War" by Q.Mast. F. A. Harvey of the 2nd Dorsets. Privately printed in Ludgershall in 1923. Sadly the only other copy I can find is a photocopy in the IWM.

Anyone wishing to have a copy of this rare book might be interested to know one has just gone on sale on ABE for £45, sadly lacking it's title page.

[charlie962]

I have just lashed out on a reasonably priced copy of "Remembering Kut". A lot of material quoted from surviving NCOs and men rather than officers. Particularly long quotes from the man I was originally researching in another thread. So for me it was worth it.

 

The author is clearly a great admirer of General Melliss (quite rightly) and quotes many examples of his efforts to help the men. She also had a certain amount of direct correspondence with him. It was partly chance that he first stumbled upon the truth of the prisoners' treatment but thereafter he didn't let go and despite being very ill himself, and not forgetting that he too was a prisoner, he made it his business to do as much as possible to help them. He used the respect that the Turks showed to a General to advantage to get things done. Apparently the Turks were so rattled by his remonstrations they even signalled ahead that Melliss was coming and so tried to hide the worst cases. However Melliss often found them. But in the end he was not unaware that the moment he moved on the maltreatment and neglect would return. He must have saved quite a few lives though, and eased suffering. And to be fair to the other senior officers, they were sent by a route that did not cross the soldiers' route just to avoid a repeat of Melliss.

 

I remain doubtful about Townshend.

 

Charlie

 

 

[charlie962]

On 17/06/2016 at 18:08, SJ CLARK said:

I was given a handwritten account of the surrender and the treatment the soldiers received. The soldier who wrote this account was a radio operator at the time of the surrender.

 

SJC

 

SJC

8379 Pte Arthur Goode is shown as Leicestershire Regt attached Wireless Signal Squadron. If you are not already aware, he too is quoted several times in "Remembering Kut". Incidentally his MIC says IUL or IVL. What is this?

I would be very interested to see a copy of this account if ever that is possible?

Charlie

Edited 17 May , 2017 by charlie962

[seaJane]

3 hours ago, charlie962 said:

I have just lashed out on a reasonably priced copy of "Remembering Kut"

Funny, I managed to get hold of one the other day as well, after months of seeing ridiculously pricy copies for sale!

[kenf48]

3 hours ago, charlie962 said:

 

 Incidentally his MIC says IUL or IVL. What is this?

 

 

Indian Unattached List

See https://wiki.fibis.org/w/Unattached_List for full explanation. I guess it reflects his attachment to the Wireless Signal Squadron.

 

It seems the 14-15 Star was returned and or duplicated to show this as the asterisk refers to the note on the card.

 

Ken

 

Edited 17 May , 2017 by kenf48

[bob lembke]

Different cultures have different attitudes to the captured, at least on paper. The Turks and Japanese despised surrendered soldiers. The French officers allowed their African troops to execute captured German soldiers with flame-throwers; the German soldiers, knowing that they were going to be burned to death, put on their gas-masks in preparation. This is from a French source, a world-famous writer. 

 

After WW II the Allies gave the Japanese a "pass" on their horrible experiments on humans, as long as the Japanese transferred the medical data to the allies. The Japanese, instead of providing rations to their troops, allowed them to eat Australian prisoners, in the jungle, one arm, them another arm the next day, leaving them alive left the meat fresh in the jungle without refrigeration. Not cricket. 

 

Is is the white, Western European cultural take supreme? I think so. But I am not omniscient. 

 

I have raised the topic of a similar, much larger atrocity on the part of the Allies during the Great War twice, there was zero interest in going there on the GWF. In the words of the Master of Murder, Stalin: "The murder of one is a tragedy, the murder of a million is a statistic."

[charlie962]

Ken, thanks for the link on IUL; Makes sense. Charlie

 

Bob, I have the clear impression that the Turks did not despise surrendered soldiers. They were just totally indifferent to their fate as they were the fate of their own soldiers. There were many instances of compassion shown by individuals. Remembering Kut contains many examples.  Lady Neave tries to distinguish between the attitudes of the  'old' Turk and the 'young' Turk but I am not sure how true this is? Charlie

[bob lembke]

Charlie;

 

You may be right. They were often rather indifferent to their own soldiers. 

 

I I recently sold a building (four apartments and a store) to a young Turkish immigrant to the US. I knew him slightly. At the end of the closing, he suddenly threw in some conditions that had the effect of putting $30,000 in my pocket. His estate agent was amazed, and said: "What's that for?" The young Turkish fellow said: "I am doing this because this gentleman knows more Turkish history than I do." But I am sure that he did it because he knew that my father in 1915 had volunteered to go to Gallipoli to fight for Turkey, and that in 1922 he was running guns to Turkey from Berlin when the Greeks were invading Anatolia and carrying out ethnic cleansing, and no one in Europe had any intention of helping the Turks. 

 

I would guess that many Turks both despised surrendered enemy, and were indifferent, as many were to their own soldiers as well. 

[David Filsell]

I have read a great deal about the appalling Japanese treatment of POWs and indeed many others. But I must say the one arm at a time is new to me. I. Would very much welcome a trustworthy source quoted before accepting it as anything other than a very tall tall story.

Edited 18 May , 2017 by David Filsell

[charlie962]

...and one must not forget that the Turks in 1916 were well advanced their massacre of over a million Armenians, often killed in extremely brutal fashion. So why bother about a few surrendered 'other ranks'. Despite their own suffering it was often Armenians who nevertheless showed kindness to the British men.

 

War lifts a lot of stones and what crawls out is not a credit to any country. I don't intend to get into a comparative brutality argument. I am quite sure all 'civilised' countries are capable of regressing given the right environment.  But I do want to try and understand the background and ensure that the suffering (I dont think anyone is denying this?) individuals are not forgotten.

 

Charlie

[Nigel1898]

Black Bread and Barbed Wire by Michael Moynihan is a collection of POW experiences. One of the chapters is an edited account of RQMS Frank Harveys'time on the Knut death march. The story is quite horrific.Its certainly equal to the mistreatment of allied POWs in Japanese captivity in the Second a World War.

[seaJane]

!!!

Did anyone see the Yearsley (450 miles to Freedom) material at Ightham Mote on Antiques Roadshow?

[MikeyH]

Yes I did, seems that the lady actually threw away some of the items found in the attic!

 

Mike.

[seaJane]

I know, aaarghh!

[healdav]

3 hours ago, seaJane said:

I know, aaarghh!

I went to a small archive in a communtiy centre here a few years ago.

They were busy throwing out all the records of the slave labourers who had worked in the steel works down the road during the last war, so as to make space for TV magazines and a couple of ther really important things.

I managed to save a few clip files, but the vast majority had already gone.

"What does anyone want with all that old paper" was the reply when I remonstrated.

[charlie962]

Just a reminder that 450 miles is available on Archive.org here

 

Charlie (thanks to prev posting by forumite Maureene  )

Edited 23 May , 2017 by charlie962

[John Vickers]

I know that this is an old thread but there are so few references to this prison camp (spelled Yarbassi or Yarbaschi) that I'd add this to the thread. Had to look it up for a research project involving PoWs. It's easy to find by following the railway line through the mountains in the SE of Turkey. A Google map search for present-day Yarbasi will find it: 

Yarbasi Googlemaps Reference

[trajan]

I used to travel that route a lot by train on my way to Syria but never was aware of its history before recently. Thanks for posting this as I will keep a keen eye out next time I go that way - although probably not for some years!

 

Julian

[charlie962]

On 29/07/2016 at 17:59, seaJane said:

Russell Braddon's The Siege includes quotations from both officers and other ranks via diaries and notebooks which were lent to him for the duration of his research. I'd be very interested to know where those diaries may now be,

 

The diaries were almost certainly returned. It was the questionnaires he sent to all those survivors still living in 1960s, plus the subsequent  records of selective interviews he carried out that I was keen to unearth.  He does reference his quotes to the original corresponder and I have checked and identified most of the names listed in the Acknowledgements and the Notes.

 

I found where probably his only surviving papers are held and I also came across a recent biography of Braddon by Dr Nigel Starck of Australia. I contacted him to see what he knew and he kindly replied by return:

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

 

"Russ Braddon destroyed his papers before leaving London in 1993. In the biography, I refer to this obsession with privacy – and to the measure of salvation supplied by Jim Whitehand, his companion and business manager:

 

Intent still upon camouflage, he wrote to Pat, the ‘gorgeous sister’, proclaiming his relief at having destroyed ‘six large plastic bagsful’ of letters and other memorabilia: ‘I feel better now they’re gone … all the yellowing paperwork of the curious career I enjoyed between 1949 and 1992.’

 

 Unknown to him, however, and for reasons of class and a natural ‘magpie’ inclination, James (Jim) Whitehand – his first long-term companion in shared domesticity and his business manager for forty years – had saved other material. Today, it forms the bulk of the Braddon collection in Canberra, offering a vivid impression of literary life in London and Australia from 1949 to 1995:

 

I was a working-class boy, and I couldn’t bear to see all those letters and photographs thrown out. I even found something that Prince Philip had written for one of his books. Russ had just chucked it in the wastepaper

 

My specific reflections on how this practice affected records of The Siege are contained in the attachment to this email (an extract* from Chapter 15 of the biography). I waded through the National Library holdings and found only an Iraqi press pass and a note from the Turkish ambassador to Britain.

 

My book would have lacked much of its authority without Jim’s intervention. It took some sustained detective work to find him (living in a Lincolnshire village) – when I did track him down, he proclaimed his determination to see the work published. It was not to be, though; Jim died a few months after our meeting.

 

 I sense that Braddon relished his encounters with the siege survivors, finding much in common with them. He shared in particular their dislike of certain officers’ privileges.

(Dr) Nigel Starck"

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

 

So now we know.  *The interesting 6pp pdf extract from the biography I can copy to anyone interested.

 

This is the wiki page on Braddon and gives the detail of Dr Starck's book.

 

 

 

I am still on the lookout for Lady Neave's papers!

Charlie

 

Charlie

 

 

Edited 7 December , 2017 by charlie962

[charlie962]

On 06/08/2016 at 21:17, David Filsell said:

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

You are far too clever!

Charlie

[seaJane]

4 hours ago, charlie962 said:

The interesting 6pp pdf extract from the biography I can copy to anyone interested.

If you can pm it to me I'd be delighted - alternatively let me know if you'd prefer to send it by email.

 

sJ

[Eastindia]

On 17/06/2016 at 17:08, SJ CLARK said:

I was given a handwritten account of the surrender and the treatment the soldiers received. The soldier who wrote this account was a radio operator at the time of the surrender.

 

SJC

 

[Eastindia]

Fantastic Charlie. I had not encountered Archive. Org before but in following up on your quote, lo and behold there are four books by prisoners taken at the Kut surrender available to read on line free of charge, though a donation is requested. That is my weekend accounted for