Germans leading attacks at Gallipoli

[Eceabat]

Pals,

it is just an interesting note that one of the only major Turkish formations not to have either a German commander, chief of staff or other senior staff officers was the 19th Division, under Mustafa Kemal. As this formation, along with the 27th Regiment of the 9th Division, was the one that bore the brunt of the fighting against the Allied forces in the Ariburnu sector for the first days of the land campaign, it is again questionable that the reports of German officers shouting out orders to Australian or New Zealand troops in those first few days were accurate.

Just a thought.

Bill

[TwoBob]

The chap who belonged to the 5th Norfolks who fell before his comrades disappeared mentions a German officer saving him from being bayoneted as he lay wounded.

The Australian POW at Anzac(Robinson?) whose grandson wrote a book from his diary also mentions a similer intervention.

A Bavarian chap also commanded at Suvla on Day One.Cant remember his name.

Bob

[Eceabat]

Bob,

not sure about the Norfolks but the German officer who commanded in the Suvla sector for the first few days was a Major Wilmer, who for me did an outstanding job holding up an entire corps with just 1500 men and a few guns for two days.

During the war, not just at Gallipoli, a number of Allied POWs were saved from certain death through the intervention of German officers. It should also be said that Turkish officers and, in one cas a regimental imam also saved the lives of wounded Allied soldiers who had been caputured in a Turkish counter attack.

The chap you could be referring to may have been George Kichen Kerr, who was captured in the fighting in the August offensive.

Cheers

Bill

[bob lembke]

Hi, Bill;

Yes, I had heard of Wilmer. I had thought that at Sulva at first there were only 800 Turkish gendarmes without a single MG. The inaction of the Brits was really criminal.

Kannengeiser, I believe, generally thought highly of the imams. Not only did they offer morale, but on occasion, when officers were shot down, they rallied battalion-sized units and successfully led them in combat.

Bob Lembke

[The Plummed Goose]

Bob,

Hereafter the quote from Kannengieser.

The Turkish soldier was easily contented and modest, it did not even occur to him not top accept the authority of his superiors. He followed his leader Unconditionnally, also ahead into the enemy. Allah wills it. He is deeply religious and sees his life as the first step to a better one. Directly under the detonating grenades, shortly Before the battalion enters a fight, the Imam, the army chaplain, normally delivers an address. The impression gained is always a strange one, particulary when, at the appropriate moments one can hear an “Inshallah” (may Allah grant it) from many hundreds of deep mail voices resound solemnly across the wastelands.

One evening, the jackals were howling already, I found the address rather long. The battalion was urgently needed at the front. However, I was careful not to interfere. It would have been ill received from a Christian. The imams were often splendid people who had a great and good influence on the men and would take up a command, if all officers had fallen, even the command of a battalion.

“Bedeutung und Verlauf der Kaempfe” (Berlin 1927), Colonel Hans Kannengieser p.140

eric

[Bryn]

Bean, in his 'Gallipoli Mission', gives Zeki Bey's account of some of the fighting at Lone Pine. This extract refers specifically to the position known as 'The Cup', where a Hoja (Chaplain) held part of the line 'hard up against the Australians':

"I went first up the right-hand trench, perhaps thirty-five yards up it. There I found not an officer but only the Hoja – the chaplain-of my battalion. It being the 1st Battalion of the regiment, he ranked as Mufti - the 2nd and 3rd would have an Imam. He was a very brave man and kept his head very well. I went up close to him. He said. 'You can't go farther up here' – there were some dead and wounded of the I/57th and of the line battalion. It was an old trench-bay, rather knocked about. The men told me, 'Behind this place there are English.' Bombs were being thrown from both sides and it was very dangerous. The situation was evenly balanced there, although from somewhere in the north a small cannon [almost certainly on Russell's Top] was enfilading any of our men who didn't know their way about and exposed themselves to it.

"The Hoja Mufti said, 'Don't be anxious about this flank - I'll remain here.'

"It was clear that the danger was higher up towards the centre; so I left the position in the hands of the Hoja and went towards the centre." (A communication trench led towards the centre and then turned at right angles towards the old front line.) "At the corner I met a young officer who said, 'This communication trench is held by the Australians.' (Bean, Gallipoli Mission p189).

[bob lembke]

Bob,

Hereafter the quote from Kannengieser.

The Turkish soldier was easily contented and modest, it did not even occur to him not top accept the authority of his superiors. He followed his leader Unconditionnally, also ahead into the enemy. Allah wills it. He is deeply religious and sees his life as the first step to a better one. Directly under the detonating grenades, shortly Before the battalion enters a fight, the Imam, the army chaplain, normally delivers an address. The impression gained is always a strange one, particulary when, at the appropriate moments one can hear an “Inshallah” (may Allah grant it) from many hundreds of deep mail voices resound solemnly across the wastelands.

One evening, the jackals were howling already, I found the address rather long. The battalion was urgently needed at the front. However, I was careful not to interfere. It would have been ill received from a Christian. The imams were often splendid people who had a great and good influence on the men and would take up a command, if all officers had fallen, even the command of a battalion.

“Bedeutung und Verlauf der Kaempfe” (Berlin 1927), Colonel Hans Kannengieser p.140

eric

Thanks, Eric. My recitation was from memory from 3-4 years ago.

As I have said before, my father fought in WW I from 1915 to the end, first Gallipoli and then as a Flammenwerfer operator, wounded four times, and then in the Freikorps. He loved the Turkish soldiers, and had various degrees of low opinion about almost all German and Allied troops in the war. He felt that the Turks were better (not necessarily technically, but in spirit and bravery) than all but the men of Garde=Reserve=Pionier=Regiment (Flammenwerfer) and Sturm=Bataillon Nr.5 (Rohr), which he fought with at Verdun. He was delighted to be able to supply 33 P 08s to a couple of Turkish officers visiting Berlin seeking arms for the defense of Turkey in the early 1920's.

To generalize horribly across a world-wide religion, al-Islam is very decentralized, and the local clergy has generally been very close to the people and have supplied most social services and charity in a typically personal and non-corrupt fashion, and have earned great respect over many years. Even where there is a hirarchy, as in shi'ia Iran, "rank" flows from a general appreciation of an imman's insight and wisdom as a religious judge, not being annointed by some self-nominating vast burocracy. This is generally quite similar to Judiasm. The West may suffer when we do not appreciate this, like when we overthrew the democratic Iranian government to put in the Shah, who pleased us but was brutal to the clergy, leading to the present mess when our pet was put out.

To an outsider, the apparent mutual respect that seems to be generally held between the Turks and the Australians, people that seem quite different on the surface but, that to me, both have a strong democratic streak, is quite satisfying.

Are there any well-documented captures of German officers at Gallipoli? If anyone has such, especially names, I have good resources to track the career of German officers, and perhaps come up with a date of death. Byrn's citation also suggests that it was not necessary to deplete the limited and irreplacable number of German officers in Turkey by leading infantry charges. I guess that Bean's Gallipoli Mission was a book that he wrote about his tour as a correspondent at Gallipoli. Supposedly he kept something like 67 diaries of his experiences covering the war. Do these exist? Are they accessible to anyone?

Bob Lembke

[Eceabat]

Hi Bob,

Bean's book Gallipoli Mission was based on the six weeks or so that he and a group of artists, surveyors, photographers, mapmakers, collectively known as the Australian Historical Mission, spent on the Gallipoli Peninsula in early 1919.

The task of the mission, Bean's brainchild, was basically add to the knowledge of the Gallipoli campaign, collect material for a proposed museum (which became the Australian War Memorial), and solve what Bean described as the mysteries of the campaign, such as how far the Allies penetrated on the first day etc.

Bean's diaries are in the AWM and I believe there is a project to copy them and put them on line, though how far this has gone other Pals may know better.

Cheers

Bill

PS, Bob, do you have any information of the supposed grave of a German nurse which lies near the village of Yalova on the Peninsula, she is a bit of a mystery herself.

[bob lembke]

PS, Bob, do you have any information of the supposed grave of a German nurse which lies near the village of Yalova on the Peninsula, she is a bit of a mystery herself.

I really am not a broadly-based expert on Gallipoli at present. I never have heard about the nurse. I find it surprising. Possibly there was a little hospital facility well to the rear for German personnel, there was a lot of sickness among the Germans, and the nurse herself died of an illness.

On another forum I just saw a Turkish postcard/photo of the seven-man higher staff of the Turkish 27th Infantry Regiment at Gallipoli, mostly captains and majors, and six of the seven were wearing the ribbon of the EK II; the seventh seems not to have one, but part of his uniform is obscured behind another officer. We were talking about the possibility of allied soldiers taking a fallen Turkish officer for a German.

Bob Lembke

[Eceabat]

Bob,

thanks for your reply regarding the mystry nurse. I have seen her name mentioned as Erika but am not sure of most details. I know there were some German sanitation and health units here in Turkey but if this lady was with one of these units I'd find it strange that her grave wasn't moved to Istanbul, where most of the German troops who fell are now buried, in the grounds of what was the German summer embassy on the shores of the Bosphorus. It is rather hard to get there, as it is not open to the public, but I have hopes of making it one day.

Interestingly, both the 27th and 57th regiments that bore the bulk of the fighting in the first few days of the campaign in the ANZAC sector, were recruited from Turkey's European provinces, as were many of the army's officers. Without generalising, many of the people of this region are not as dark skinned as those from the east, south east or from the Ottoman Empire's far flung holdings in the Middle East, such as Syria, where the two other regiments, the 72nd and 77th, that were at the ANZAC front in those first days were raised. If I recall correctly, at least one of the medical officers of the 57th was an Ottoman Greek.

My wife, who is from the town of Kesan just above the Gallipoli Peninsula, is often mistaken for being French (as she says, it could be worse, she could be mistaken for being Australian).

With the Australian troops having come to the peninsula from Egypt, and with images of what Turks were supposed to look like maybe based on this, it could be understandable why Turkish officers could have been mistaken for Germans.

Again of interest to the subject of this forum is a piece from Bean's book Gallipoli Mission. On page 59 of the original edition, Bean refers to a Turkish officer Kemal Bey (not Mustafa Kemal) who came to the Allied lines to discuss the ceasefire of 24 May. Bean recalls one soldier saying, "I could tell a ------ squarehead anywhere".

Cheers

Bill

[Kurt1959]

Excerpt from my Grandfather's diary whilst at Anzac:

Saturday 5th June, 1915

Our troops charged the enemy's trenches about 1 a.m. succeeded in putting some machine guns out of action. Captured about 30 Turks, 7 of which were brought to us wounded. Immediately after charge our own injured started to come in and kept us very busy till 7.30 a.m. when I came off duty, fixed up our wounded at our dressing station. Heard 120 more Turks and a German officer have also been captured. Fighting was going on all morning with heavy rifle fire, our destroyers also put in a few shells, eased off considerably this afternoon and was fairly quiet. On duty 7.30 p.m. Nothing doing up to 12 midnight. Had swim this afternoon. Not so many bathing today, weather fine, water rather cold.

Don't know whether this helps as it can't be confirmed other than being a rumour he heard.

Tim L.

This is an interesting piece of information, because in the night 4th/5th June 1st Leutnant von Rabenau was reporteted wounded and captured. Which unit captured him and is it possible to get some more information what happened to him?

As stated earlier it is possible, that German officers were engaged in battles or leading attacks but I have no report of an officer from the Landungsabteilung, who died 15 June. It could be an officer of the Pionier-Abteilung, which was in theatre from begin of June as well but there are also no records left about there duties. As Bob mentioned earlier after two month from those 200 engineers only 120 were left - most of them victims of Malaria and Ruhr.

[Guest trophy1]

Hi there!

I have been following the later discussion on German Losses on Gallipoli and stumbled across this earlier one. Having tried unsuccessfully to assess the actual position as to German involvement, I would like to pose these dumb questions.

How many Germans, in total, served in operations on Gallipoli.

How many were killed.

Why and When was the name given to "German Officers Trench" at Anzac.

Tristan

[Kurt1959]

As far as the records say, which were available to me, the only German officer, who was KIA in a close combat fight was Lt (navy) Oskar Hildebrandt on 8 August 1915. He died as a sq leader of a machine gun unit on hill 971 and was burried at Denis Dere. Later his comrades moved his corpse to the little cemetery on Kilia Tepe, where he most probably is still burried.

For that reason I don't think that this report is true and might be - like earlier mentioned - a misunderstanding by the British troops. That could happen because the German machine gun unit, which arrived 3 May on the battlefield was firstly attacked by Turkish troops because they didn't know the German uniforms. This case of "unfriendly - friendly wrestling" was solved by Major Mühlmann, who was at that time Gernal satff officer in the Southern Group of Col v. Sodenstern and cleared the situation.

Best regards

Klaus

[bob lembke]

Hi there!

I have been following the later discussion on German Losses on Gallipoli and stumbled across this earlier one. Having tried unsuccessfully to assess the actual position as to German involvement, I would like to pose these dumb questions.

How many Germans, in total, served in operations on Gallipoli.

How many were killed.

Why and When was the name given to "German Officers Trench" at Anzac.

Tristan

Hi, Tristan;

Welecome to the Forum. I think that the question of the number of Germans who served and fell at Gallipoli has been fairly well covered in the other thread that you mentioned. As that discussion must suggest, there is no crystal-clear absolute answer to these questions, at least up to this time. I suggest that you pay particular attention to the posts of "El Shahin", who is very interested in this question and who has had access to both the German and the Turkish archives.

As to the name "German Officers Trench", you will have to get an answer from our Southern Hemisphere Pals. As previously suggested, it probably was based on a misnomer or error, as, aside from the occasional tour of inspection, and the stubborn defense of the naval landing detachment (MGs), German officers generally did not serve in the front trenches, there were many brave Turkish officers to lead Turkish troops in combat. If you noticed the Times article that started off this thread, the "German officer" was not captured, but observed in combat at night, and possibly his corpse was briefly examined. As previously stated, many Turkish officers appeared to be "western" to the Allied troops. The limited number of German officers available were badly needed for staff duties, as, especially after the disasterous Balkan Wars, the Turkish Army still had serious organizational problems. In Turkish infantry units, I can't recall any German officers posted to units below the divisional level, certainly not leading company-sized bayonet charges; throwing one's life away in such an effort would have been a dereliction of duty.

Bob Lembke