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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.
*[http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-38438001/view#page/n0/mode/1up ''Two-and-a-Half Years a Prisoner of War in Turkey''] Related by Trooper G.W. Handsley, Second Light Horse Regiment ; written by Sergeant J.R. Foster, 2nd edition c 1920. nla.gov.au
*“Captives of the Turks” by Sgt. (later Capt.) John Halpin, 12th L.H. Regt., A.I.F., author of ''Blood in the Mists'' published in Sydney, 1934. A series of articles appearing in ''Reveille'', published by The Returned and Services League of Australia New South Wales Branch in 1934. Unfortunately only Parts 7-9 of the article in Volume 8, Numbers 1-3, September-November 1934 are available online, which document the harsh treatment soldiers who were not officers received.
:[http://reveille.dlconsulting.com/cgi-bin/reveille?a=d&d=RV193409.1.12&srpos=1&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN------ Part 7, page 10], [http://reveille.dlconsulting.com/cgi-bin/reveille?a=d&d=RV193410.1.12&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN------# Part 8, page 10] [http://reveille.dlconsulting.com/cgi-bin/reveille?a=d&d=RV193411.1.10&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN------# Part 9 page 10]. reveille.dlconsulting.com
*Sample chapters from [http://www.saradistribution.com/otherranksofkut.htm ''Other Ranks of Kut''] by P. W. Long, M.M. Flight Sergeant R.A.F, 1938. Transcription of the Preface, Author’s Note, Chapter One and Chapter Six only, with details of the titles of the remaining chapters. saradistribution.com. The author was at the time Driver Percy Walter Long, 67528, 63rd Battery, R.F.A.<ref>[http://www.rushdenheritage.co.uk/war/longDriverPW.html Driver P. W. Long] 63rd Battery, R.F.A. rushdenheritage.co.uk. [https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/31759/supplement/1230 The London Gazette Supplement] 27/30 January 1920, page 1230</ref> Long’s account starts on 30th April 1916, the day after the surrender of Kut. From the preface by Sir Arnold Wilson, M.P. “Of 2,592 British rank and file taken prisoner at Kut, 70 per cent died in captivity”. [http://www.naval-military-press.com/other-ranks-of-kut.html More about the book]
*[http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015014437605?urlappend=%3Bseq=25 ''Adventures in the Near East, 1918-1922''], by A. Rawlinson 1924 Hathi Trust Digital Library. [http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015014437605?urlappend=%3Bseq=348 Pages 272-333] describe the author's imprisonment, when on 18 March 1920, he, and four British soldiers he commanded, were arrested by Turkish Nationalist Troops and confined for 20 months, until exchanged for Turkish prisoners 31 October 1921.
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