World War I, a global war centered on Europe; It started on 28 July 1914 and ended on 11 November 1918. II. It was called “World War” or “Great War” until World War II. The great powers of the world at that time took part in the war by separating into two separate parties, the Entente and the Alliance. The Ottoman Empire, which could not find the opportunity to heal the wounds of the Balkan Wars, was in the middle of the First World War and was included in the war in the Alliance bloc. Ottoman Empire; He sent more than 3 million soldiers to the Çanakkale, Iraq, Sinai-Palestine and Sarıkamış fronts.
Soldiers sent to the fronts; He fought non-stop for 10 years, from Tripoli to the Balkan War, from the First World War to the end of the National Struggle. While most of the soldiers who left lost their lives, some of them were maimed and thousands of them were taken prisoner. In this war; Millions of citizens, including over 200 thousand members of the Ottoman army, were taken prisoner by the Allied Powers. Turkish prisoners who left heart-wrenching stories behind; It has remained in captivity in a wide geography stretching from Corsica Island to Canada, from Siberia to Myanmar.
Many stories are reached by the researchers who tracked down the captured soldiers. Many of the Turks, who were taken prisoner and taken to different parts of the world during the war, lost their lives. Some of these people settled there, and some managed to return at the end of the war. While there is no news about some of them, the sad stories of others are reached.
The Nations where the Turks were taken prisoner and the prisoner camps they were taken to
In World War I; 150,000 Ottoman soldiers were captured by the British, who fought on the Çanakkale, Iraq and Sinai-Palestinian fronts. More than 135 thousand Turkish soldiers were taken to prison camps established in countries such as Cyprus, Egypt, India and Burma (Myanmar). Some of these soldiers were stationed near the Egyptian city of Alexandria. To Seydibeşir Camp has been sent. In this camp, Ottoman soldiers of the 48th regiment of the 16th division, who were captured on the Palestinian front in 1918, are kept. The prisoners held in the camp were subjected to all kinds of torture, torture, severe insults and humiliation until 1920. Soldiers who were put into disinfection pools in the camp under the pretext of breaking germs, some of them were boiled and some of them were blinded by the chrysol substance found in the pool. 15 thousand Ottoman soldiers were blinded in this camp, where the resistances did not benefit.
More than 60 thousand Turkish soldiers were captured by the Russians on the Eastern front and the Galician Front in Europe, especially in Sarıkamış. The captives, who were taken to be taken out of the battlefield, were placed in areas with a low Muslim population. They were held on the island of Nargin in Azerbaijan, in towns such as Vetluga and Varnavin in European Russia, and in prison camps set up in various cities along the Trans-Siberian line. The captives were mostly taken to Siberia, 12 thousand kilometers away from Sarıkamış.
50 thousand of the more than 200 thousand prisoners lost their lives on the roads or in the camps. Those who died on the way from these captives, who were loaded into wagons and taken by train, were thrown out of the train’s window and left. Most of the captives could not stand the Siberian cold, and many died in the camps as a result of infectious diseases such as typhus, typhoid fever and cholera. In the land battles of Çanakkale, around 2,000 Turkish soldiers were captured by the French. These prisoners were taken by ships to the island of Corsica and to the prisoner camps established in Southern France.
During World War I, many civilians were taken prisoner as well as soldiers. During the war, the British took many German, Austrian, Hungarian and Ottoman citizens prisoner and sent them to concentration camps. The Isle of Man, located in Ireland, has been the center of the civilian concentration camps established by the British. More than 100 thousand Ottoman citizens were also held captive in the camps on this island. On the Isle of Man, there is a cemetery where the graves of 7 Turkish soldiers are located.
24 prisoner concentration camps were established in Canada under British rule. Among those held captive in these camps, 205 Ottoman citizens were found. 32 of the prisoners held in the camp during the war lost their lives. Among the names taken prisoner in the British camps are the 4th and 5th Presidents, Cemal Gürsel and Cevdet Sunay. These people lived a prisoner life for about a year in a camp in Egypt.
