Turkish Troops on the Italy Front in 1917

[Harry64]

Maybe is it possible that Turkish troops are fighting together with German and Austro-Hungarian troops on the Italy Front in 1917 when 12. Isonzo-offensive started? I read about this in an article in a magazine? Any nearer info about this?

Harry

[bob lembke]

Maybe is it possible that Turkish troops are fighting together with German and Austro-Hungarian troops on the Italy Front in 1917 when 12. Isonzo-offensive started? I read about this in an article in a magazine? Any nearer info about this?

Harry

I have read a lot about Caporetto in German and Austrian sources and a lot about Turkish matters in general in WW I in a variety of primary sources (my father fought at Gallipoli as a volunteer with the Turks and was to fight at Caparetto with his flamethrower company, but an old wound from Verdun went bad and he instead went to a hospital in France; I am writing these things up) and I have never heard of such a thing. However, there were several Turkish divisions fighting on the Galician front against the Russians and in Macadonia against the Brits, French, Serbs, etc. Possibly observers? Any further detail? I recently read Pomiankowski and I am almost sure that he would have mentioned it.

Bob Lembke

[Harry64]

Thank you, but here is an article in the New York Times

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html...FBF66838C609EDE

about this.

Harry

[infantry]

An interesting news clip but Ottoman units did not take part in Italian theater of operations. Several special ops formations and a number of advisors fought with Libyans against Italians and that was it.

For your info 19th and 20th IDs were sent to reinforce Galicia Front after Brusilov Offensive in August 1916 and remained there until September 1917.

After another urgent request from the German General Staff for which the VI Army Corps (elite 15th and 25th Divisions) was assigned to help joint operations against Romania between September 1916 and May 1918.

Similarly the XX Army Corps (46th and 50th Divisions) were sent to relieve the hard pressed Bulgarians on the Salonika Front in October 1916 and remained there until March 1917.

[Harry64]

Thanks alot for your interesting infos.

Harry

[bob lembke]

Thank you, but here is an article in the New York Times

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html...FBF66838C609EDE

about this.

Harry

Harry;

I pulled up the Times article, but lost it, and it will not reload. I am not an expert on the fighting in Italy, with the exception of Caparetto, but the bit I read before it dissapeared seems to be contain a lot of misinformation. For example, not only were there no Turks there, I don't think that there were any Germans, who arrived some weeks later to crush the Italians at the battle of Caparetto, which was, I believe, also called the 12th Battle of Izonso (sp?), not this battle. If you try to study WW I on the basis of things like the wartime newspaper articles of beligerents you are to a large part working in Cookoo-land. Triple so if you are working on material from the Allies, as they had a astonishing organized disinformation campaign underway. Additionally, in the US at this time newspapermen who's articles did not support the war were liable to be thrown in Federal prison for long prison terms.

The Internet is convenient but pulls up a lot of rubbish, and there is no "Junkometer" on the Internet. Things written during the war, except for internal primary sourcea and documents are largely either fabrications or had to be heavily censored and not especially useful. I plan to soon troll the newly freely available NY Times archives, but with great care.

Sorry for the sermon.

Bob Lembke

[centurion]

I've generally found the NYT reliable (for a certain value of reliability). They may miss things out but their own correspondents and editors tend not to have put things in. However one should be careful to distinguish, as in this case, where they are reporting on an official communique. In such cases they will often quote it verbatim but it is always clear that this is a communique and not a NYT reporter's report. Where they have reported, in their own words, so to speak and it is possible to verify from a third source the NYT tend to be relatively straight. Official communiques are something else again and their accuracy and veracity can vary enormously, not I think as Bob suggests through some vast misinformation conspiracy but through the fog of war, the tendency of some generals and politicians to want to make themselves look good (or at least not as incompetent as they may be), an innate tendency to secrecy, a wish to keep national moral up etc etc. [no change there then].

This is nothing new, at least one French defeat in the Peninsular in the early 1800s appears on various (French) monuments as a victory because the defeated general was quick to dispatch a glowing report of his 'victory' which reached Paris and was reported in all the newspapers before any other account surfaced. He had opined, correctly, that once the real truth emerged Napoleon would not wish a public denial of the announced victory that punishing his general would inevitably entail.