Rusya'da Üç Esaret Yılı : Bir Türk Subayının Hatıraları [Three years of imprisonment in Russia : Memoirs of a Turkish Officer]. Anlatan [Narrator]: Ahmet Göze. Yazan [Writer]: Ergun Göze. İstanbul: Boğaziçi Yayınları, 1989.
Ahmet from Niksar (Tokat), born in 1895, was a student of literature at Dar-ül Fünun (now Istanbul University). He had to drop out of university in his final year when WWI broke out. After three months training he found himself on the Caucasian Front as a mülazım, that is a lieutenant.
He was in the battalion located on Kozican Hill eastward from Hasankale, now called Pasinler in Erzurum Province. In the morning of December 31, 1915, the Russians had started bombing even before the first lights of the day appeared. Kozican Hill was an ideal location for defense. The Russians were resolute to capture it on that day since the battalion had been hindering their advance towards Erzurum over the last three days. The battalion which had 124 members three days ago was now left with 11 and the most senior was Ahmet among them. They were given plenty of ammunition and were ordered to die with the aim of delaying the advance of the Russian Army while the Ottoman Army retreated. An hour's bombing was followed by a march towards the hill. Ahmet and the other survivors of the battalion watched them as they came closer and closer. At the moment Ahmet thought it was the right time to start close combat, he ordered "Fix bayonets!". The soldiers followed the order. But he was not able to stand up! Not changing his position over a very long time, the snow had melted underneath him, his heavy coat was frozen and got stuck to the ice. A stout Cossack soldier in the first row noticed the situation, came and released him breaking the ice stuck to the coat with his bayonet. He must have felt sorry for this young boy since he gave a handful of granulated sugar. But then fixed his eyes on the pistol on Ahmet's belt. Ahmet realized that he had to hand it over and that meant that he had become a prisoner. His heart sank.
I read this 106 pages memoir told by the father, and written by son in a day when I discovered it, because my paternal grandmother Nazire's brother Mustafa was also taken prisoner and I know nothing about what he had been through. Ahmet and Mustafa, these two must have been through similar things if not the same.
The prisoners were taken to the nearest headquarters, which once belonged to the Ottoman Army. One night three officers came and woke them up telling to put their clothes on, to take them out. These officers knew Turkish and spoke with an Armenian accent. Major İbrahim Bey guessed that they were acting on their own account and their intention was to kill them. He told the others to gather around the flag pole in front of the main building and shout "sekret" meaning secret or something else if they knew Russian. Until they reached the pole the word had spread through the line and they started shouting around the pole. Night guards arrived hastily and tried to understand what was going on. The Major told them that they wanted to see the commander. When the situation was clarified the commander was sorry and promised to keep Armenian officers away from them.
At the end of Russo-Ottoman War of 1877-1878 many Ottoman Armenians who have cooperated with Russians left Turkey together with the Russian Army. Many of them became army officers and came back during WWI with their own agenda beyond serving to their army.
After a while the prisoners were taken to the island of Nargin on Caspian Sea near Baku to be distributed further. Ahmet ended at Arkhangelsk, a seaport on Arctic Ocean, for an imprisonment which would last 3.5 years until his escape.
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| Mom & Dad 1945, Erzurum |
Our grand uncle Mustafa remained a prisoner until the end of the war. He was among the survivors delivered to Istanbul when the war was over. Family members looked for him day after day when they heard the prisoners had arrived. At the end of a very long time taking and meticulous searching they found him in a miserable state in a courtyard.
Today is December 28, three days before 31st, that is Ahmet's battalion was still 124 people on the top of Kozican Hill. From today, 101 years ago, 113 soldiers lost their lives one by one in the following three days leaving their comrades in arms behind to enable The Ottoman Army retreat to a more suitable position.
I think I have written earlier that my maternal grandfather fought in Batum, and my paternal grandfather was again a veteran who had fought in Arabian peninsula.
While men were fighting, women, children and elderlies were left behind to fight against hunger, epidemics and mercilessness of Armenian irregulars in Eastern Anatolia.
Those who have been made believe that Turks committed genocide against Armenians or all Ottoman Christians should I think consider whether as Justin McCarthy says if there can be a genocide where more perpetrators die than victims.
I pay tribute to the Kozican Hill Battalion and other victims of WWI, and also to 5.5 million souls we lost from 1912-1922.
For further reading on Caucasian Front (in Turkish):
Albayrak, M.(31.01.2010). 95. Yıldönümünde Sarıkamış Harekatını Yeniden Değerlendirmek. Gelibolu'yu Anlamak. Accessed at
http://www.geliboluyuanlamak.com/266_95--Yildonumunde-Sarikamis-Harek%C3%A2tini-Yeniden-Degerlendirmek-2-Bolum---(-Muzaffer-Albayrak-).html# on 27.12.2014.
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