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Prisoners of the Turks (First World War)

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Officers were not required to work, but other soldiers were. The horrible truth appears to have been that only those men fit enough to work survived. Those who were unfit to work died due many reasons, but including the policy that only working prisoners were provided with food.
Afyonkarahisar was used as a prison camp from early 1915 both officers and men being kept in houses, rather than in a proper camp with barbed wire around it. The first prisoners there were Russians, joined in early 1915 by officers and men from the French navy. From late April onwards, there was a small but steady flow of sailors and soldiers captured during the Gallipoli Campaign. Later, there were some prisoner captured at Kut in Iraq sent to the camp and other officers captured in Egypt, Syria and Jordan. <ref>Eceabat [Bill Sellars] [http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?/topic/89524-turkish-pows-and-pows-in-afyonkarahisar/&do=findComment&comment=841330 Turkish POW's and POW's in AfyonKarahisar] ''Great War Forum'' 19 January , 2008. Retrieved 16 October 2016.</ref> Most subsequent camps were associated with the construction, or running, of the Baghdad Railway, including related roadworks.
There were camps in Kastamonu, Eskisehir, Capadoccia, Cankiri, Afion, Sivas, Yozgat, Hacikiri, Belemedik.<ref>Dogan Sahin [http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1226&p=847997 Kut POW] ''Great War Forum'' 28 January 2008. Retrieved 20 April 2015.</ref>
==Exhumation from graves and reburial, after the War==
After the War, c 1927, bodies from those POW graves from across Turkey which could be identified, were exhumed and reburied in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Baghdad (North Gate) War Cemetery.<ref>[http://www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery/cemetery/57303/BAGHDAD%20(NORTH%20GATE)%20WAR%20CEMETERY Baghdad (North Gate) War Cemetery] cwgc.org</ref> The website of the CWGC may contain a 'concentration' record if this has occurred, or if there is no 'concentration' record, there should be details in the grave registration reports. For graves which could not be identified, the names of the soldiers generally appear on a Memorial at Baghdad.
 
It is possible that only British soldiers, and not soldiers from the Indian Army, were exhumed and reburied. One name of a probable Indian soldier POW appears on a Memorial at Basra.
==Mesopotamia==
*International Committee of the Red Cross Historical Archives records:
**[http://grandeguerre.icrc.org/en/List/1082890/1873/50410/ R 50410-R 50508] List of Prisoners from Croissant Rouge Ottoman. Includes Indian Army soldiers.
**[http://grandeguerre.icrc.org/en/List/1082890/1873/50509/ R 50509-R 50840]. Further List of Prisoners from Croissant Rouge Ottoman. Includes some Lists of deaths, with causes of death. Includes Indian Army soldiers. Note: there appear to be some unrelated records included.
**[http://grandeguerre.icrc.org/en/List/4174659/1873/51794/ R 51794, R 51795] is a two page list of British Officers repatriated Prisoners of War from Turkey, reported at Alexandria October 1918. This appears to be a British War Office document.
*[http://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/prisoners_of_war_ottoman_empiremiddle_east "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.
*[http://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/prisoners_of_war "Prisoners of War"] by Heather Jones. encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net. "Section 6: Mistreatment" contains information about prisoners in Turkey.
*[http://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/prisoners_of_war_australia "Prisoners of War (Australia)"] by Aaron Pegram. encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net. Includes references to POWs in Turkey, including books and other accounts in the Bibliography.
*[http://www.gutenberg-e.org/steuer/index.html'' 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.
**[http://www.gutenberg-e.org/steuer/archive/AppendixA/turkey/index.html Turkish Prison Camps]. Click on the map for a list of the camps in Turkey.
*[http://www.armeniangenocide.com.au/files/diamadis%20precious%20GPII.pdf "Precious and Honoured Guests of the Ottoman Government"] by Panayiotis Diamadis, pages 162-179 ''Genocide Perspectives II, '' 2002. The author is a lecturer at the University of Technology, Sydney.
*[https://books.google.com.au/books?id=RA-JBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA146 “Australian Prisoners of the Turks: Negotiating Culture Clash in Captivity”] by Kate Ariotti, pages 146-166 ‪''Other Fronts, Other Wars?: First World War Studies on the Eve of the Centennial''‬. 2014 Google Books
*[http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=tharts ''Capturing Captivity: Australian Prisoners of the Great War''] by Julia Smart. 2013 Honours thesis, University Of Wollongong. uow.edu.au. Includes details of personal accounts, and bibliography relating to Turkey.
*[https://www.flickr.com/photos/50074978@N06/albums/72157626048387648/with/8374464884/ Photograph Collection: Researche about WW1-Eastern Front]. Includes an image titled [https://www.flickr.com/photos/50074978@N06/8368013255/in/album-72157626048387648/ “Internment Camps in Turkey”], from an unknown source, perhaps French. Also includes some maps in respect of Kut, and includes some unattributed images of pages from ''In Kut and Captivity : with the Sixth Indian Division'' by Major EWC Sandes, refer online books below.
*[http://www.trainsofturkey.com/w/pmwiki.php/Network/CilicianGates The Cilician gates] trainsofturkey.com. The Baghdad Railway and construction of the tunnels through the Taurus Mountains. The location of the work camps at Belemedik and Hacikiri.
*[http://www.winkleighheroes.co.uk/level3/kutdeathmarch.htm Prisoners of the Turks: the fate of Frederick William Davey and Frank Turner following the surrender of Kut] winkleighheroes.co.uk
*[http://twgpp.org/downloads/news/TWGPP_Newsletter_Winter_2012.pdf Scroll to: "A Prisoner of the Turks"] by Brian and Mari Walker, Winter 2012 Newsletter ''The War Graves Photographic Project''. twgpp.org. Herbert George May 9th Light Horse Regiment 5th Reinforcement, died of disease at Ngde (north of the Taurus Mountains) 26 September 1917. Private Colin Spencer Campbell, 2nd Light Horse Field Ambulance was captured in Palestine 26-3-17, and was sent to Bagtche (Amanus Mountains) to work on the railway line, where discipline was harsh. He subsequently went to Jarbaschi, another working camp , and when sick with malaria, to Bore camp (north of the Taurus Mountains).
*[https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/A02265/ Group portrait of Australian prisoners at Afion Kara Hissar [Officers<nowiki>]</nowiki>] (awm.gov.au) includes at least two who published accounts: Lieutenant L H Luscombe of the 14th Battalion AIF captured on Gallipoli on 8 August 1915 and Captain J A Brown, a Sydney doctor serving as a Medical Officer [Australian Army Medical Corps] with the Gloucestershire Yeomanry, captured on the Palestine front in 1916. Their books were: ''The Story of Harold Earl – Australian'' by L H Luscombe published Brisbane 1970 and ''Turkish Days and Ways'' by James Brown published Sydney 1940.
*[https://www.flickr.com/photos/50074978@N06/albums/72157625382067978 Photo Collection World War 1, Gallipoli,Mesopotamia, Anatolia]. lncludes photographs of the POW prison and hospital at Adana.
:[https://www.flickr.com/photos/50074978@N06/albums/72157625385520788 Photo collection: journey along the track of the WW1 POW's allied in Turkey] Includes photos of Afion Kara Hissar.
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