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Remembered Today:

Bully Beef at Gallipoli


gilly100

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I am aware of numerous accounts by the men that ate bully beef that it was not that especially liked, especially when the weather was warm and the subsequent effect on the contents.

Does anyone know the main contents of this Gallipoli staple, as it seems the Ottoman Turks did not like it either when they came across it. I have heard they were concerned that the contents contained pig meat and or pig offal. Would this be correct?

 

Cheers

Ian

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http://www.answers.com/Q/What_is_ww1_'bully'_beef .

 

Lots of examples of "corned or bully beef" - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/onthefrontline/4527915/Army-says-goodbye-to-bully-beef.html

 

The Turkish view of it may simply have been ignorance of its contents and one reason for disliking it is that it is unpleasant in the hot weather.

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 Ottoman soldiers didn't like Bully Beef because they thought it was pork, as you have already said. Eating pork is forbidden in Islam. So, religious/cultural habits are the main reasons for avoiding Bully Beef (there are some memories talking about this issue but unfortunately can't remember any name atm). Also, ordinary Anatolian villagers were not familiar to this kind of food. Of course they had meat in their meals, but not in this way. Meat was usually consumed with rice (pilav). Still, several kinds of soup + legumes were their main food source.

Edited by emrezmen
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Yes thanks emrezmen and Max. I understand the religious reasoning. As it seems bully beef is described as a salted corned beef, I was just curious if any other forms of meat were used or not, giving any validity to Ottoman Turks concerns.

Thanks

Ian

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Giving Google an outing on a rainy day, I find no reference to any meat other than beef or mutton in British rations.  However, I find reference to other meats including pork in German rations (brief mention at para 8 here http://spartacus-educational.com/FWWtrenchfood.htm . )  Given that the Ottoman Turks and the German army were allied, one might speculate that the former were told/misunderstood that British tinned foods should be avoided on the basis that they might contain pork.

 

Max

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Tinned bacon was issued. Doesn't that have something to do with pigs? Also pork and beans - mainly pork fat by account!

 

Pete 

Edited by PMHart
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  • 4 weeks later...

Kannengiesser refers to 'pork and peas' - see page 167 of his 'The Campaign in Gallipoli' - this is the translation by Mjr C.J.P. Ball DSO, MC (late of the 29th Div and the RHA)

though I have seen it suggested that a better translation is in fact bacon and peas [Speckerbsen]

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I've since read Gallipoli - the New Zealand Story by Christopher Pugsley in which the saltiness of the tinned bacon  is cursed for its effect on the thirst - so bacon as well as corned beef.  Brilliant book by the way.

 

Max

 

 

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Below is part of a diary entry from my Grandfather who served at Gallipoli with the 1/9th Battalion, Manchester Regiment.  They arrived in June 1915.  If it "poured out [of the tin] like oil" it's not surprising that friend or foe didn't much care for it ...

 

Letter-from-Gallipoli.PNG.922ebbbd1adf76863988ff222ff274a2.PNG

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  • 1 month later...

In one of John Masters' novels he recounts the story of Hindu soldiers persuaded to eat corned beef, being told by pragmatic KCOs that it was tinned mutton...must be The Ravi Lancers book?

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28 minutes ago, BullerTurner said:

In one of John Masters' novels he recounts the story of Hindu soldiers persuaded to eat corned beef, being told by pragmatic KCOs that it was tinned mutton...must be The Ravi Lancers book?

Bugles and a Tiger. 

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On ‎23‎/‎04‎/‎2018 at 14:02, PJS said:

Below is part of a diary entry from my Grandfather who served at Gallipoli with the 1/9th Battalion, Manchester Regiment.  They arrived in June 1915.  If it "poured out [of the tin] like oil" it's not surprising that friend or foe didn't much care for it ...

 

Letter-from-Gallipoli.PNG.922ebbbd1adf76863988ff222ff274a2.PNG

Very interesting to read that, my grandfather was in the 6th Bn Royal Munsters who landed at Suvla and their first job was to go and help the 11th Bn Manchesters on Kiretch Tepe Sirt ridge. Different battalion I know but brings it home reading the words of a man that was there. I was shot down on a facebook page when there were comments of the film about the "missing" Norfolk Regiment starring David Jason, I said Suvla bay and inland was portrayed far too nice on the film, where were the flies and putrefying corpses? I was told there wouldn't be many then because it was only a couple of days after landing. I had read in various books that in those temperatures and conditions deterioration was very fast. My grandfather died in 1923 of TB but I was told he was haunted for the rest of his life what he saw at Gallipoli.

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20 hours ago, axial1680 said:

Very interesting to read that, my grandfather was in the 6th Bn Royal Munsters who landed at Suvla and their first job was to go and help the 11th Bn Manchesters on Kiretch Tepe Sirt ridge. Different battalion I know but brings it home reading the words of a man that was there. I was shot down on a facebook page when there were comments of the film about the "missing" Norfolk Regiment starring David Jason, I said Suvla bay and inland was portrayed far too nice on the film, where were the flies and putrefying corpses? I was told there wouldn't be many then because it was only a couple of days after landing. I had read in various books that in those temperatures and conditions deterioration was very fast. My grandfather died in 1923 of TB but I was told he was haunted for the rest of his life what he saw at Gallipoli.

 

I have a few more pages of his writings about his experience at Gallipoli and one of these days I will post them to a separate thread.

 

Peter

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On 05/06/2018 at 19:54, KGB said:

Bugles and a Tiger. 

No, since I posted that I have made a rare visit to my home!  I can assure you that the novel in question was in fact The Ravi Lancers, by John Masters.  One imagines a young Masters being told by vertebrae officers of how the soldiers in the Great War were told this white lie to preserve operational efficiency.

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Bugles and a tiger, page 71  NEL edition.

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Then that must be the reminiscence which leads to him directing the Rissaldar Major and the Yuvraj of Ravi doing the same in his Great War novel?  I am endebted to you.

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  • 2 months later...

I was wondering what sort, if any, at Gallipoli in particular, what rations the Ottoman Turks carried and or were served? Did they have any tinned meat rations as part of their army issue diet? Obviously meat specific based on their religious beliefs. I have only heard of the Allied side having their Bully Beef which this topic discusses and its various contents.

Any input welcomed.

Ian

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14 minutes ago, gilly100 said:

....Obviously meat specific based on their religious beliefs....

Ian

 

No, not so obvious. I have read more than once that the British Army was clever enough to obtain from the various religious authorities what Catholics would call "dispensations" from peacetime religious dietary restrictions. They did this right at the start of the war. My understanding is that:

Catholics were dispensed from having to avoid meat on Fridays, and during Lent,

Muslims were allowed to eat pork,

Jews did not have to keep kosher.

Not sure about the position with Hindus.

 

Did the Ottoman authorities - they had the Sultan, after all - not grant such "dispensations" to their own troops?

 

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1 hour ago, Wexflyer said:

 

No, not so obvious. I have read more than once that the British Army was clever enough to obtain from the various religious authorities what Catholics would call "dispensations" from peacetime religious dietary restrictions. They did this right at the start of the war. My understanding is that:

Catholics were dispensed from having to avoid meat on Fridays, and during Lent,

Muslims were allowed to eat pork,

Jews did not have to keep kosher.

Not sure about the position with Hindus.

 

Did the Ottoman authorities - they had the Sultan, after all - not grant such "dispensations" to their own troops?

 

The British army had long negotiated dispensations from normal religious requirements. Thus, Sikhs were able to travel across water without difficulty, and Muslims could eat forms of pork. Hindus could eat beef if nothing else available. This had nothing to do with WW1, and dates from, I think, the 1870s or earlier.

 

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Ian,

you may have come across this already but in case not, canned meat in mentioned in this article

https://arrow.dit.ie/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.co.il/&httpsredir=1&article=1099&context=dgs

 

quote:- According to the Decree of Rations issued on 8th October 1914, the daily ration of a Turkish soldier was estimated to equal to 3149,25 calories and was as follows:

900 g bread;

250 g meat (or half the amount of kavurma (potted meat), pastırma (cured dried meat), sucuk (cured spicy sausage) or canned meat);

150 g bulgur (cracked wheat);

20 g clarified butter;

20 g salt, 20 onion; 86 g rice or ¼ of meat substituted with pulses like chickpeas, beans, dried vegetables, potatoes or canned or fresh vegetables (Keskin 2007, p.69).

 

There are further details on page 3, including:-

during the period between 31 July 1914 and 28 February 1915, the Army Material Command transferred the following provisions to the storage of the Dardanelles Defense Command: ….

11,049 kg meat, 18,678 kg canned meat or kavurma (potted meat), 2,880 kg potted meat for soup,

… … …

At the same period Eceabat and Bandırma Depots were stocked with the following: ….

37,177 kg meat, 174,407 kg canned meat or kavurma (potted meat), 18 cattle (to be slaughtered),

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8 hours ago, gilly100 said:

I was wondering what sort, if any, at Gallipoli in particular, what rations the Ottoman Turks carried and or were served? Did they have any tinned meat rations as part of their army issue diet? Obviously meat specific based on their religious beliefs. I have only heard of the Allied side having their Bully Beef which this topic discusses and its various contents.

Any input welcomed.

Ian


I would like to add some extracts from the war diary of famous 19th Division (only modern Turkish transcriptions, original copies in Old Turkish are also available). Daily rations of 14th Regiment in May 1915 (from three different days): 

 

IMG_6036.JPG.eab5e00231fff04c3625f9274983b011.JPG

Breakfast:
-Tea (Çay)
-Rice porridge (tinned) (pirinç lapası)

Lunch:
-Olive grains (zeytin tanesi)
-Grapes (üzüm)

Dinner:
-Rice pilaf (pirinç pilavı) with braised meat (kavurma)

 

 

IMG_6040.JPG.39851e3bf8e4e96ece56cf18d26a2ade.JPG

Breakfast:

-Tea

-Rice porridge (tinned) 

-Bread (ekmek)

 

Lunch:

-Olive grains
-Grapes
-Hazelnut (fındık)
-Dates (hurma)

 

Dinner:
-Rice porridge with meat
-Stewed beans (kuru fasulye) with meat

 

 

IMG_6041.JPG.9326917a0ffd23e002a721f3c588476c.JPG

Breakfast:

-Bread 

-Tinned soup (konserve çorbası) (most probably Knorr's Erbswurst)
-Tea

 

Lunch:
-Hazelnut 

-Grapes
 

Dinner:
-Stewed beans with meat

 

Some preserved/fermented kinds of meat (such as the aforementioned sucuk or pastirma) were issued (mostly for officers. Take a look at Mehmet Fasih's Lone Pine diary). But it's hard to say that tinned meat similar to the ones consumed by British was included among the standard Ottoman rations.  

 

Edited by emrezmen
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Thanks fellas for your detailed responses.

Ian

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Well, if this postcard from the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish war is to be believed, the Ottoman army was not only used to eating bully beef, but depended on it!

 

CornedBeefWilsonTurkeyMeat.zm.jpg

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