bob lembke Posted 6 July , 2005 Share Posted 6 July , 2005 Jeff; I believe I read a bit about the voluntary Pioniere in von Sanders or in Kannengeisser. (Do you know the latter?) 200 volunteers were brought in, and very quickly they had 80% casualties, many sick, of course. I think my father came in in a group of replacements, smuggled through Romania. His story about that trip was interesting. The unit was sort of "off the books", so the paper trail should be thin. From his descriptions he must have been on the ANZAC front, and as a trained construction engineer I suspect that he supervised mining warfare. It seems that after the unit was rebuilt they were used carefully, not thrown in combat. He loved the Turks, and, a storm trooper and Flammenwerfer operator for the rest of the war, he thought that the typical Turkish soldier was the best, except for the very best German soldiers, such as Sturm=Bataillon Nr. 5 (Rohr), with which he fought at Verdun. The Turks were not tops technically, of course, but in spirit. Where was the OOB where the engineers were mentioned? Can you give me a citation? The other German units at Gallipoli were small MG detachments, many from German sailors from the Goeben and Breslau. I think that the Brits overran one of them and "put them to the sword." Bob Lembke Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwsleser Posted 6 July , 2005 Share Posted 6 July , 2005 Bob Yes I have read Hans Kannengiesser's Campaign in Gallipoli. I would need to check it and Five Years in Turkey to see what they have to say. If truly 'off the books', it would be hard to document without personal accounts. The cite for the engineer company is: Birinci Dünya Harbinde Türk harbi Çanakkale Cephesi Harekâti (Harziran 1915 – Ocak 1916) Vncu Cilt 3ncü Kitap. Kroki 13 'Agusto - 1915 Sonunda 5nci Ordu Kuruluşu' (At the end of August - 1915 5th Army Distribution of Forces). I have great respect for the Turks I have worked with. Good people. Have a great day! Jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bob lembke Posted 7 July , 2005 Share Posted 7 July , 2005 Jeff; I collect Militaer=Paesse and have or have studied about 50, and my father's is unique in several ways. It has no mention of the Gallipoli thing at all. However, I have other proof. But they were put in civilian clothes and sneaked thru sort-of neutral Romania, whose authorities were presumably bribed. So it is not surprising that this would be difficult to record in such a document, which would eventually become public. Any info on this Pionier=Kompagnie is greatly appreciated. I have started a document with your Turkish leads and will get it to my wife to do some searches; perhaps we can find where they can be found in the US. I will ask if she can do a search in the UK. As I said, her German database is currently turned off. I had figured that at some time I would have to learn a tiny subset of Turkish and have to skim tomes for clues to my typically obscure interests. I understand that Germany supplied the Turks with 30 flame throwers during WK I. I have also seen a photo which seems to show a Turkish flame thrower team training in a training facility on the Austro-Hungarian front against the Russians. Anyone hear (or read) anything about this? Finally, how do you guys get special characters into your posts? Umlauten, usw.. Bob Lembke Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Dunlop Posted 7 July , 2005 Share Posted 7 July , 2005 I use the Alt + some (usually) four figure number approach for adding special characters. For example, holding down the <Alt> key and typing 0252 should give you ü Robert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwsleser Posted 7 July , 2005 Share Posted 7 July , 2005 Bob I normally compose my posts in Word, then paste. This way I can use the shortcut keys and the symbol insert. The shortcut keys don’t apparently work while in 'Reply'. Jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Dunlop Posted 7 July , 2005 Share Posted 7 July , 2005 The shortcut keys don’t apparently work while in 'Reply'. üßäöèéêâ - which spells 'I think it works ok Jeff' Robert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwsleser Posted 7 July , 2005 Share Posted 7 July , 2005 I will take your word for it, but I just tried several times to use the shortcut keys. No luck. Jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Dunlop Posted 7 July , 2005 Share Posted 7 July , 2005 Thanks Jeff. Are you able to use shortcut keys in Word documents or do you have to use the 'Insert'>'Characters' option? Robert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwsleser Posted 12 July , 2005 Share Posted 12 July , 2005 Its has arrived! After a quick scan, it appears there isn't any additional text. I will peruse the text a bit more to confirm this first impression. However, the photo section has been greatly expanded. Maps are identical to the 2002 edition I posted earlier. Yes, some of the words selected in translation are a bit different from what I would have done, but it beats reading Turkish. I am still working on finding more copies. Jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwsleser Posted 14 July , 2005 Share Posted 14 July , 2005 For another look at the Ottoman side of the campaign, Edward Ercikson (author of Ordered to Die) published an article in the The Journal of Military History Vol. 64 No. 4 (October 2001). The titile is 'Strength against Weakness: Otttoman Military Effectiveness at Gallipoli, 1915'. Not a bad article, but left me a little underwhelmed. The bit of greatest interest to me was his ratings of the Allied and Ottoman divisions. Not knowing enough about the Allied forces, I can't judge whether he got it right or not. His ratings of Ottomans units was interesting and I wil need to ponder them. Jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bob lembke Posted 17 July , 2005 Share Posted 17 July , 2005 Jeff I have got verbal feedback from my wife; I will post the details when she gets her notes to me, but she generally did not get hits on the about six General Staff books you cited in the US. Her book seach engines are powerful but not infallible; tools that us ordinary mortals are not allowed to use. (I think major libraries pay to allow their professional librarians use these systems, not available to the public, probably not to 99% of people at the university either.) She did get a hit on an intriging book; in Turkish, on the German contribution to the Turkish WW I effort. Right down my alley, to say the least. Not sure if I can get my hands on it, though. Also, what would I do with it, in that case. I had always suspected that I was going to have to learn a small sub-set of Turkish at some time. I do have a friend who is a native Turkish speaker, but I can hardly ask him to read entire books for me. Will post more info when I have the detailed info. Bob Lembke Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bob lembke Posted 19 July , 2005 Share Posted 19 July , 2005 Jeff and others; Good news, bad news!!! I got the goods from my super-librarian wife. She ran searches on the six General Staff books that Jeff described, using, I believe, the two major English language search engines. Not a single hit on any of the books. Dosen't mean that there isn't a copy or two somewhere in the US, but it is not a good sign. However, doing the searches, she got the spoor of another Turkish book on WW I. It is a 318 page book published in Istanbul in 1993 on Turkish/German military relations and German military assistance to Turkey 1914 - 1918. I will attempt the title, but I will not be able to put in the correct accents, which, as Jeff knows, are sometimes more than accents, but different letters. Dunya Harbi'nde Turk Alman ittifaki ve askeri yardimlar / Veli Yilmaz (There is one Umlaut and three non-dot "i"s in there, Jeff.) Further good news is that this book is cataloged at Michigan State, Berkeley, Library of Congress, Univ. of Chicago, Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, and NYU. Eight copies!!! I asked why there was not a single hit on the General Staff books and eight on the other, and she said that the latter is a commercially published book, and most copies are sent over on approval by a book-dealer who actually is motivated to sell books and make money. None of that applies to the General Staff. She also gave me the address of her quite dilligent Istanbul book dealer: Isis Ltd., Semsibey Sok, 10 Beylerbeyi, Istanbul 81210 She deals with them in English. A librarian friend of her's went there and they supplied a chauffeured car and an interpreter. But, he was buying 400 books. Had a fun time prowling thru the Istanbul book-selling/publishing district looking for military books last September. Lots of fundamentalist / Islamist publishing places. Went in one and the guy explained that they only sold Islamic fundamentalist books. Very friendly, even insisted that I take a book, in English, for free, on why Darwin and evolution was a bunch of junk. I thought I was in the "Bible Belt". y'Allah din y'Allah; Allah akbar! Now all I have to do is learn Turkish. Cheers, Bob Lembke Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
domsim Posted 19 July , 2005 Author Share Posted 19 July , 2005 Hi Bob Just to go slightly off topic, you haven't come across anything in English from the Turkish side on the Hejaz campaign have you? I was just wondering if there was a similar summary for that area as well? Cheers Dominic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bob lembke Posted 19 July , 2005 Share Posted 19 July , 2005 Hi Bob Just to go slightly off topic, you haven't come across anything in English from the Turkish side on the Hejaz campaign have you? I was just wondering if there was a similar summary for that area as well? Cheers Dominic. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Hi Dominic; In a word, no. But my wife did the searches, not I. She got the hit on some Turkish word or words she decided to enter, but I don't know which ones and why she picked them. So I don't know why she got this hit. She has done this stuff for years, so she is quite clever at it. She only has a good reading grasp of 11 languages, but she can puzzle out a bit of almost anything, and has to work in, for example, African languages, Mayan, and a sub-dialect of Mayan. Something I do to try to figure out the existence of a book in the US is get into the online catalog of the Library of Congress or one of several other major libraries and do searches based on various criteria. If it is in the USA at some institution it will usually be in the LOC. If memory serves I have also done this in the British Library on-line catalog. (Have been there, quite a library.) If the book is in English this should work well. If I see an interesting book on, for example, German ebay, I do such a search to see if it is a common book, and gives a clue as to what a proper valuation might be, or what luck I might have in loaning it from another library. Long live books! Bob Lembke Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
domsim Posted 19 July , 2005 Author Share Posted 19 July , 2005 Just found this article by Erickson on the web which contains a list of all the Official history-interesting reading as well! Turkish official history article You can download it as a pdf file. Cheers Dominic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bob lembke Posted 19 July , 2005 Share Posted 19 July , 2005 Just found this article by Erickson on the web which contains a list of all the Official history-interesting reading as well! Cheers Dominic <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Dominic; Yes, thank you for that. It is both very interesting and very useful. I have printed it off for my paper files, and stored it as a computer file. I am not widely read on the Ottoman actions in WW I (only say a dozen books) but I clearly get the sense that there is little faith in Turkish sources, or if they exist at all, among the typical author, say on Gallipoli. I think a lot of popular writers consider them some species of "Fuzzy-Wuzzy". Actually, it is clear that the Turks were actually maddened record-keepers. I remember, reading a German primary source (Kannengeiser?) and the author, on site in Turkey, (the Germans, of course, were hardly weak in record-keeping) was pressing the Turks to do less record-keeping. Another source (probably the "Lone Pine Diary") said, if memory serves, that the company-level Turkish officer had to keep up with 146 different reports. The diarist certainly recorded his struggling with the tide of paper. In a German coumpany I would imagine that 98% of that would be handled by the Feldwebel. This probably came from the habits of empire. The Ottomans conquored 60 nations, I believe. (It is interesting that the Turks, I believe, made no attempt to weld Iraq into a single unit, anymore than they attempted to unify Serbija, Greece, and Palestine. They understood the art of empire-management.) Their Imperial burocratic mechanism was wonderful, so much so that after the sultanate itself became a mess the empire ran itself for 200-300 years before it started to unwind. I'm sure that there was Olympic-scale record-keeping going on there. An interesting recent development, and related to the Turkish-Armenian mess, is that the Turkish Archives recently released a list of 553,000 Turks that they say were murdered by the Armenians between about 1890 and 1915, I believe. The articles were unclear, but I think it was actually that, a list of 553,000 names. Whatever merit it has, that does imply a lot of detailed records. It is interesting that it took Erickson years to collect a set of these histories, which are for sale in a General Staff compound. Again, if memory serves, he served in Turkey, and happened to be a personal friend of the Turkish chief of staff. If that is true, his problems getting these is not a good sign for the possibilities of ordinary mortals such as we history-mice. Perhaps some Istanbul (or Ankara?) bookdealer could arrainge to get some in bulk and resell them. The situation I described with my wife's booksearch suggests that there would be some market in major libraries for some of these, as at least eight libraries bought the commercial book. I asked my wife how she got the hits on that commercial book. She said they just popped up when she entered the beginning of the book titles for the books that Jeff listed. Bob Lembke Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MartinWills Posted 19 July , 2005 Share Posted 19 July , 2005 Just found this article by Erickson on the web which contains a list of all the Official history-interesting reading as well! Turkish official history article You can download it as a pdf file. Cheers Dominic <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I Just seem to get a request to login - am I missing something? Martin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MartinWills Posted 19 July , 2005 Share Posted 19 July , 2005 One intersting, if a little haphazard, volume which does touch briefly on the Hejaz is "Turkish Battle at Khaybar" by Esref Kuscubasi published by AArba Yayinlari in 1997 ISBN 975-391-035-3. It's a paperback edition of a personal memoir which relates to the writers involvement in the Battle at Khaybar and defence of Mecca and spent some subsequent time as a prisoner. I have not read it - it's on my pile of "to do" . It suffers from some typographical errors and capyions and corrections glued in on slips of paper but none the less is a welcome volume in english. I believe it is available from Pandora (bookshop) in the Taksim area of Istanbul - which specialises in books in english. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bob lembke Posted 19 July , 2005 Share Posted 19 July , 2005 Martin; I wrote a response to you and cleverly previewed it, but did not post it. When I first clicked on Dominic's link, a few hours ago, I got the article, which I both printed and saved as a file. Just now, I tried again, but, as crazy it sounds, it seems to be different. The verbage of the link. When I clicked on it I got thrown into the publisher's site. I bet you can look the article up from there. I saw a login panel, but my reading of it, without trying to log on myself, suggests that the logon is not mandatory. (They may just want to know who is logging on, or even add you to a mailing list, or whatever.) If it really does not work out I could probably send you the file. Bob Lembke Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
domsim Posted 20 July , 2005 Author Share Posted 20 July , 2005 Martin i just tried again and got the same as you and Bob. I did download the article as a pdf file so if you want a copy let me or Bob know. Cheers Dominic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greenwoodman Posted 20 July , 2005 Share Posted 20 July , 2005 Could someone send me a copy of the pdf file, please? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
domsim Posted 21 July , 2005 Author Share Posted 21 July , 2005 Could someone send me a copy of the pdf file, please? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> If you send me an e-mail address I will send you an attachment of the file Cheers Dominic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bob lembke Posted 22 July , 2005 Share Posted 22 July , 2005 If you send me an e-mail address I will send you an attachment of the file Cheers Dominic <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Guys; I got a copy to Martin successfully; Dominic, did you get one to "Greenwoodman" successfully? I could, if needed. It is great that we can cooperate in this difficult area, and heartening that the Turks seem to be more interested in their history than I first thought. Reading a source not directly related to military history, I read that the Turks traditionally did not have the same concept of history as an area of interest than the "West" did. I plan to actively use this material in my fourth book (trying to get book one out the door), but I am taking a lead in collecting sources and info, due to the difficulties with sources in this area. Bob Lembke Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greenwoodman Posted 22 July , 2005 Share Posted 22 July , 2005 Yes, Bob, he did, I've just printed it out. Thank you very much Dominic, I much appreciate that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Plummed Goose Posted 27 July , 2005 Share Posted 27 July , 2005 Dear All, It seems we are not getting anywhere with "the brief history of the Çanakkale campaign". I am seriously thinking of an alternative solution for those interested. If you are interested please send me a PM with an e-mail address where I can contact you. cheers eric Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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