Prisoners of the Turks (First World War)

Officers who were captured were generally treated better than “other ranks”, who almost always experienced terrible conditions often leading to death.

Contents

Mesopotamia

For many accounts of members of the allied forces taken prisoner in Mesopotamia, especially after the fall of Kut, see Mesopotamia Campaign-External links and Historical books online

Other

External links

• Finding Aid: Foreign Office Files (FO 383) at the National Archives: Regarding Military & Civilian Prisoners of War: List of Files and Contents: 1915-1919. Compiled September 2014 by seaforths. Contains a FIND (Search) function. onedrive.live.com. Contains references such as "FO 383/090 1915 Description: Turkey: Prisoners, including…"
• "Prisoners of War (Ottoman Empire/Middle East)" by Yücel Yanıkdağ . Scroll down to the section "Entente Prisoners of War in the Ottoman Empire" encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net. The mortality rate of the British and Dominion prisoners in Ottoman captivity was very high.
• Pursuit of an 'Unparalleled Opportunity': The American YMCA and Prisoner of War Diplomacy among the Central Power Nations during World War I 1914-1923 by Kenneth Steuer, written as a dissertation in 2008. Website of Gutenberg-e, a program of the American Historical Association and Columbia University Press.
  • Turkish Prison Camps. Click on the map for a list of the camps in Turkey.
• Narrative of John Wheat c 1914-1918, who was a torpedoman on the Australian submarine A.E.2 which was sunk 30 April 1915 in the Sea of Marmora (Gallipoli), taken prisoner by the Germans, and subsequently became a prisoner of war in Turkey, working on the construction of the Baghdad Railway. Transcribed by, and from the collection of the Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW. Photographs and postcards from his album Click on the tab “Online” to display 8 items.

Historical books online

• Prisoners of the red desert, being a full and true history of the men of the "Tara" by Captain Rupert Stanley Gwatkin-Williams RN 1919 Archive.org. HMS Tara was sunk by a German submarine near Sollum, Egypt in 1915. The surviving crew were handed over to the Senussi, allies of the Turks and were held prisoners at Bir Hakkim (Bir el Hakim) in Libya until rescued in 1916 in dramatic circumstances by British Armoured Cars under the command of the Duke of Westminster.
• Eastern Nights--and Flights; a Record of Oriental Adventure by Alan Bott 1920 Archive.org The author was a scout pilot in Palestine, who became, after his plane crashed in 1918 a prisoner of the Turks, eventually in Afion-Kara-Hissar in Turkey. Alan Bott Wikipedia.
• In Brigands' Hands and Turkish Prisons, 1914-1918 by A Forder 1920 Archive.org The author was an American missionary who was taken prisoner in Jerusalem in November 1914 and jailed by the military. He was a prisoner in Damascus for four years until the British occupation.