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battlefield atrocities at Gallipoli


Gallipoli Trench Rat

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The shooting of prisoners is documented to have been practiced by both the Ottomans and the Allies at Gallipoli. The French officer Jean Giraudoux wrote on 13 June 1915: "The Australians massacre all the Turks: the Australian's national enemy, one of them said to me, is the Turk". Beyond the shooting of prisoners has anyone come across any other atrocities committed by either side such as mutilating bodies, the taking of macabre souvenirs (i.e. body parts or bones, etc.), looting, urinating on or desecration of the dead, etc.?

Can anyone recommend any memoirs, diaries, etc., that touch on the shooting of prisoners and/or any other battlefield atrocities?

Thank you for any and all information on this subject.

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Mate,

I cant say I have at Anzac while I have a number in fighting in Palestine.

I one area I looked at was the fighting by the 1st LHR at Deadmans Ridge 7 Aug 1915.

The 1st LHR reported sent around two hundred men over the top to support attacks by the 3rd LH Bde at the Nek and 2nd LHR at Quinns.

Reports give around 51 killed and 75 wounded in the main two Sqn's that charged are fought (A & B Sqns) with around another 5 killed and 17 wounded from other sub units in the 1 LHR who didn't charge.

After the fighting and the withdrawal from the Deadmans Trenches captured that morning many wounded had to be left there, so reported by 1st LHR soldiers.

None were later reported as prisoners after the battle?

What happened to them?

Died of wounds or some other reason, we may never know.

S.B

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Seems to me like a queer thing of which to make a study. Numbers maybe, but the rest?

Hazel C.

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Seems to me like a queer thing of which to make a study. Numbers maybe, but the rest?

Hazel C.

Glad you said it that way. When I read the OP at first, I was taken aback at the title. That's not to say that there such things did not occur but I am doubtful of the necessity to bring it up.

Jonathan

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Glad you said it that way. When I read the OP at first, I was taken aback at the title. That's not to say that there such things did not occur but I am doubtful of the necessity to bring it up.

Jonathan

Quite!

Hazel

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So there are parts of history better swept under the table? :-)

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So there are parts of history better swept under the table? :-)

No, I am not saying that.

My comment was based on the OP seemingly wanting some sort of voyeuristic access.

Jonathan

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I have no issue with those questions being asked and answered as long as the outcome is based on fact, not guesswork and assumption 100 years down the line. If we have a serious interest we can't just ignore ugly truths, how we file or use those are personal choices.

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I suspect the challenge here is corroboration and finding official documentation that supports any allegations. I have seen some fairly macabre claims relating to the Gurkhas in diaries, none of which can be substantiated to my knowledge. One has to keep in mind that Gallipoli is a particularly rich mine of mythology and a theatre where journalists were embedded with troops, providing another channel for myth-making. Separating fact from fiction is challenging. Even with events that we know happened and have multiple eyewitnesses, often the variations in the accounts exposes who was there and who was repeating events third hand.

As an example there is a thread on a crashed British aircraft at Suvla in Oct 1915. There are over a dozen eyewitness accounts, but one particular account is at odds with all the others in detail. It is the most dramatic of the accounts. It seems pretty certain that this account was repeated speech and exaggerated. The 'eyewitness' who was guilty of embellishment was British Officer and a Chaplain to boot, later to receive the MC*. It is a small example of how 'facts' can get distorted. Without multiple sources it is difficult to substantiate .

The lack of evidence has not prevented people from forming firm views.

MG

* I make the last point as some seem to believe the higher the rank and the more decorations, the greater the integrity of the 'witness'. One only has to look at the memoirs of a few senior generals to understand that the correlation between rank and the integrity of their diaries can at times be low. French, Haig etc... MG

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Martin,

Would welcome examples of Haig' s lack of integrity in his diaries. Errors certainly, poor judgement at times certainly but lack of integrity is a bold judgement I feel.

David

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Martin,

Would welcome examples of Haig' s lack of integrity in his diaries. Errors certainly, poor judgement at times certainly but lack of integrity is a bold judgement I feel.

David

There are differences between his original diary and the published one. I understand there are two manuscripts in two different archives and they purport to be the same diary but they differ in detail. One is in the National Archives and the other is in the national Library of Scotland.There is a school of thought that when writing his diaries for publication he added to one of them (the working copy) in order to make them less incriminating. I have personally not read the diaries side by side and have to take the word of the authors that have done the research. The point is, if it is not already clear, that there are two versions of some events and the second version is more flattering towards Haig. I understand this is common knowledge.

To be clear I am not suggesting he fabricated his whole diary, but there is evidence according to some authors that parts were 'cleaned up' after the fact. The parts of his diaries I am familiar with relate to the Retreat from Mons and in particular his moment at Landrecies. As you know there was much finger-pointing after the war between some of the key players.

I would argue a published personal diary has one aim: to show the author in the best possible light. It is hardly surprising that the final draft differed from the original diary written on the day or shortly thereafter. I understand Lloyd George was fairly good at re-writing history too. Didn't Churchill says something to the effect that history ill be kind to him because he intended to write it? maybe a subject for another thread. MG

Edit. If one is looking for measure of integrity, Haig's exam failures for Camberley in 1893/4 might be a good starting point. He told fellow students that he had passed but had a delayed entrance to 1895 due to personal reasons. In fact the records show he failed his entrance exam and scored less than the 50% required in mathematics. This was in the days when vacancies could be filled by men with personal recommendations from the C-in-C. Haig led his brother Officers to believe he had gained entry to Staff College by passing exams which he actually failed, but gained entrance under patronage. The source of this particular story is Andrew Green's 'Writing the Great War' and relates to Duff Cooper researching Haig for a biography in the 1930s and checking Haig's credentials. The story was relayed by the ubiquitous Edmonds. MG

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This past weekend I read an interview that was done years ago with Sam Cutts (Australian Gallipoli veteran) and he said something to the effect of: "We'd been told to kill or be killed, show no mercy, take no prisoners." In a thread on this forum

There are a number of sources out there that do allude to (or briefly mention) battlefield atrocities being committed at Gallipoli. I think 100 years on we should be able to have an open, honest and unbiased discussion about this subject. It is important to put the myths aside and look at all aspects (good or bad) of the Gallipoli Campaign. I searched the forum and found some tiny inklings on the subject, but there was not one solely dedicated thread to its discussion. I think 100 years on this is an important subject to examine and discuss.

Even in popular culture the subject is hinted at…in Russell Crowe’s recent The Water Diviner the Turks shooting in the head the Allied wounded laying in No Man’s Land is mentioned.

Yes, this is a very dark and off-putting subject. I ask that if you are offended or choose not to accept the realities of war and the sorts of horrific things that happen in war please just ignore this thread and go along with your day. I do not think anyone wants to get into a flame war or moral argument over this sensitive topic. This is a dark side and reality of the Great War that is often ignored and largely forgotten for good reason. But it is important to study the entirety of the conflict whether good or bad, moral or unjust. I think we can all agree wars are nasty business. It is a great disservice to history to whitewash or to sweep the unsavory bits under the table and to view history through sugar-coated lenses. In the words of Abraham Lincoln, “History is not history, unless it is the truth.”

Battlefield atrocities during WW2 committed by both Axis and Allied forces are well known, documented and talked about openly in memoirs and oral histories especially in regards to the conduct of the war in the Pacific and on the Eastern Front. Battlefield atrocities have been occurring since Antiquity (just read Homer’s Iliad). No one’s hands are clean in war.

The intent of my query is not to offend, judge or tarnish the reputations of anyone’s ancestors or countrymen, but rather to further examine this largely dark and un-talked about aspect of the campaign from a purely historical perspective so at this major milestone of 100 years on we can better understand and evaluate the horrors of the Gallipoli Campaign from this darkest of angles.

Check out this recently uncovered photograph (link below) discovered by the Herts at War project. Warning: Not appropriate for the faint of heart. This type of macabre gallows humor was pervasive throughout the Great War on all fronts among soldiers of all nationalities and was more of a common occurrence than is let on or wanted to be believed. I have photographs in my personal collection of Australians in Sinai and Palestine posing with the bones of the enemy.

https://www.facebook.com/hertsatwar/photos/a.1846896788782385.1073741832.1781639631974768/2104492143022847/?type=1&theater

Seriously Jonathan “voyeuristic access”?! This is a very serious query about a very serious, albeit dark, subject matter. Can you get any more sophomoric?!

One of the myths that surrounds the Gallipoli Campaign is the “good war” notion – the idea that despite being enemies everyone was “friends” and that no bitter hatred existed. The respect that built up between the Allies and “Johnny Turk” has been greatly inflated and exaggerated over the course of the last 100 years. Yes, gestures of good will and armistices to collect the dead did occur but that mindset should not be overly emphasized.

I appreciate those who are taking this thread and subject seriously and taking the time to add thought provoking dialogue.

Thank you "auchonvillerssomme" for your comment that is exactly the point of this thread - we cannot ignore the ugly truths.

Thank you Steve Becker and Martin G. for your interesting and thoughtful insights - definitely adds more food for thought.

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There are differences between his original diary and the published one. I understand there are two manuscripts in two different archives and they purport to be the same diary but they differ in detail. One is in the National Archives and the other is in the national Library of Scotland.There is a school of thought that when writing his diaries for publication he added to one of them (the working copy) in order to make them less incriminating. I have personally not read the diaries side by side and have to take the word of the authors that have done the research. The point is, if it is not already clear, that there are to versions of some events and the second version is more flattering towards Haig. I understand this is common knowledge.

To be clear I am not suggesting he fabricated his whole diary, but there is evidence according to some authors that parts were 'cleaned up' after the fact. The parts of his diaries I am familiar with relate to the Retreat from Mons and in particular his moment at Landrecies. As you know there was much finger-pointing after the war between some of the key players.

I would argue a published personal diary has one aim: to show the author in the best possible light. It is hardly surprising that the final draft differed from the original diary written on the day or shortly thereafter. I understand Lloyd George was fairly good at re-writing history too. Didn't Churchill says something to the effect that history ill be kind to him because he intended to write it? maybe a subject for another thread. MG

Haig sent copies of his diary home, and requested Lady Haig to tweak them.

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Haig sent copies of his diary home, and requested Lady Haig to tweak them.

Indeed. Even Prof Sheffield acknowledges this; a man who has done much good work realigning views towards Haig.

Apparently there are three, not two versions of the diary. Version II is a carbon copy of the original, but has handwritten additions. ...and then there is Lady Haig's typewritten one. I don't recall exactly when I first read of the various diaries bu I know it came up in recent reading, so Trial by Fire or Stemming the Tide might contain a footnote to this effect.

Anyway, on topic there is a fairly well known story of Australians allegedly killing Turkish POWs when they thought they were about to be overrun. I didn't make a note of it at the time of reading as it was of passing interest, but it will be in one of the more hefty tomes on Gallipoli.

Interestingly the unit war diaries don't appear to mention them. Searching 250,000 words of the 29th Div's war diaries for key words there is not a glimmer of this., not even an accusation. This, the British formation that saw the longest and hardest fighting through the campaign. I will check the other Divisions and if anything appear I will flag it. MG

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Seriously Jonathan “voyeuristic access”?! This is a very serious query about a very serious, albeit dark, subject matter. Can you get any more sophomoric?!

I do apologise if I offended you. I was simply interpreting what you said in the first post. This second post of yours does clarify your position better.

As for being sophomoric, I'll assume that's some sort of put down and let it reflect back on you.

Jonathan

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Lewis Einstein, an official at the American Embassy in Constaninople, commented “Apparently the main reason why the wounded are murdered is the hope of pillage: they are stripped of everything. Colonel M. tells me the same was true in Libya.”

See https://archive.org/stream/insideconstantin00einsrich#page/144/mode/2up/

pages 144-145, Inside Constantinople: a diplomatist's diary during the Dardanelles expedition, April-September, 1915 by Lewis Einstein, published 1917. Archive.org

Cheers

Maureen

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Not an atrocity more an expediency but according to the war diary on one day (30th June) the 2nd SWB burnt or buried 80 Turks (one batch of 30 being 'collected and burnt', the entry for the 'about' 50 says 'burnt and buried'). They also buried 10 members of the RDF, the bodies being collected while they were making improvements to the defences.

This detail left a telling impression. It must have been just another horror for the living, burning bodies in the open, in the dark, in, ironically, Fire Trenches (or if you're Ancestry - 'Fire Frenches'!).

There's no evidence or suggestion of mutilation, they must have been far too busy for that, just a need to dispose of the cadavers as quickly as possible but of course it does show they treated their own side with a little more reverence as time allowed

Ken

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A worthy topic of discussion if we aim to look at all aspects of the campaign. There is some evidence during the August offensive members of the 4th Australian Infantry Brigade met with some foul play just east of Hill 60, 15Bn I think. Will check my stuff and get back, but Bean I think alludes to it in his vol2. I walked the ground last year. Bones and bullets here and there, tilled up from farming activity.

No point sugar coating war history me thinks.

Ian

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Mate,

I think there is a sort of "Gallows Humor" on all sides during the war.

Stuck in trenches for days with little to do leads one to play around with this, as can be seen in movies or in accounts by soldiers.

The problems come when this type of humor goes to far, as can be seen in movies by collecting ears or Teeth, which as some accounts give this type of thing happening at Gallipoli.

You will always get one man out of a group who takes it to far and as much as we disapprove of this sort of thing, we all know it goes on.

Accounts by the ALH in Palestine give Turks going out in the darkness killing the wounded and robbing the dead , while this didn't happen in all cases it did happen.

Of cause we have the added problems that civilians (arabs) also went around the battlefields to also rob the dead and some Turks I've talked to segest these and not the Turks were the ones killing the wounded?

S.B

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Martin

Thanks for your detailed reply. The comments you make have been much discussed before. One key fact of course is that it does not seem that Haig had any intention of publishing his diaries in his lifetime. Equally there is little real evidence that he was particularly concerned about the judgement of history. Equally modification of diaries in the light of new information by diarists is not merely common, it is common place. It must also be stated that all and any comments made by Edmunds about 'friends' and colleagues most be regarded with deep suspicion. He was noted - even during his lifetime - as an expert dissembler for entertaining effect and for far less noble reasons.

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An early example by the British. This from the diary of Maj George Davidson RAMC, medical Officer on the SS River Clyde on 26th Apr 1915.

Our advance from the shore began to-day about noon, our men lining out along the sands and the banks above, and gradually getting forward by short rushes. Barbed wire had also to be cut. But the advance through the village was the most difficult, as the remains of houses and garden walls contained snipers. I almost shiver to look back on a mad thing I did to-day—mad because it was done out of mere curiosity. I was asked to go to "Old Fort" beyond the village, near the outermost capture for to-day to see Colonel Doughty-Wylie and Major Grimshaw who were reported badly wounded. Both were dead, and as I was about to return I was next asked if I would go to a garden at the top of the village to see some wounded men. Afterwards I went right through the village alone, with only my revolver in my hand, and from the houses sniping was still going on. I had been assured that it was supposed to be safe. I peered into a number of wrecked houses—every house had been blown to bits—and I had not long returned when sniping commenced from a prominent corner house I had just passed. The only living things I saw in the village were two cats and a dog. I was very sorry for a cat that had cuddled close to the face of a dead Turk in the street, one leg embracing the top of his head. I went up to stroke and sympathise with it for the loss of what I took to be its master, when I found that the upper part of the man's head had been blown away, and the cat was enjoying a meal of human brains. The dog followed till I came upon three Dublin Fusiliers, who wished to shoot it straight away when I pleaded for it, but one of them had a shot at it when my back was turned and the poor brute went off howling. I had done my best, when going along the fosse of the "Old Fort," to save a badly wounded Turk from three of another battalion who were standing over him and discussing the advisability of putting an end to him, but I am afraid my interference was in vain here also.

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Thanks Martin

A most interesting account.

Ian

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Some first hand testimony comes from the memoirs of General William Marshall, who assumed divisional command at Gallipoli and participated in the intense fighting from the landings to Suvla. His book MEMORIES OF FOUR FRONTS is a treasure.

Here he describes the fighting of June 1915 in a chapter titled Trench Fighting at Helles, page 97 :

I should premise that up to this time the Turks had acted on the principle of no quarter and had shot any of our men who had fallen into their hands ; at the same time they themselves neither asked for nor expected quarter.

He goes on to reflect on episodes earlier on in the Gallipoli fighting, while describing the August battles:

This was the first occasion on which the Turks had ever taken any prisoners, so presumably there had been a change in the orders of their higher command as regards the giving of quarter. Apropos of this, I do not think I mentioned the fact, during our advance on 28th April, we came across bodies of the 7th Fusiliers, evidently those of patrols captured at the landing on the 25th, and each had, as Kipling says, " a small blue hole in his forehead, and the back blown out of his head."

I have yet to find an authentic count of Turkish prisoners taken at Gallipoli.


Phil (PJA)

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Seems to me like a queer thing of which to make a study. Numbers maybe, but the rest?

Hazel C.

There is, I think, scope for study here.

Within the past year or so there was front page press coverage about members of the USMC urinating on bodies of Taliban fighters. It does seem that soldiers indulge in this kind of behaviour when they engage in combat with foes of different races and religions.

Gallipoli does exemplify this to a degree, surely.

For one thing, we need to acknowledge that the Gallipoli campaign, in which more than a quarter of a million men were killed or wounded in close quarters fighting of the fiercest kind , produced a phenomenally small number of prisoners. A fraction of one per cent of all British battle casualties were taken prisoner there ; compare this with France and Flanders, where the corresponding figure was five or six percent.

This must be attributable - to a large degree - to the refusal of soldiers on both sides to give quarter. It would be folly to ignore this, and almost a form of irresponsibility to shy away from it.

The source that I cited in my post above gives further testimony to how this syndrome impinged on treatment of the dead, when the festering corpses of the Turks were burnt :

I heard that the G.O.C.-in - C. was at first rather perturbed about this burning, but luckily an order was found on the person of a dead Turkish officer, directing that the bodies of the infidels were to be burnt whilst those of the faithful were to be collected and reverently buried, so what was sauce for the goose was also sauce for the gander. In future we adopted the same expedient, for mitigating, as far as possible, the appalling stenches arising from the presence of so many unburied corpses.

Page 89.

Phil (PJA)

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That does not change the sentiments expressed in my first post. I will say however, that my reaction was based, partly, on the tone of the original post. In answer to your suggestion that it "would be folly to ignore this and almost a form of irresponsibility to shy away from it", I would simply say that we have to deal with the present and the future. We all know that there were/are atrocities committed on both sides. Concentrating on the specifics of maltreatment of prisoners or their remains a hundred years ago, is of no benefit to anyone.

I remain "irresponsible",

Hazel

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