My Secret Service: Vienna, Sophia, Constantinople, Nish, Belgrade, Asia Minor, etc.Man who dined with the Kaiser
History
My Secret Service: Vienna, Sophia, Constantinople, Nish, Belgrade, Asia Minor, etc.
Man who dined with the Kaiser
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives; World War, 1914-1918 -- Secret service
In Angora, I believe, the English prisoners are confined. I have no
evidence of this beyond a chance remark I heard whilst waiting for the
train at Eski-Shehr. I know for a fact that French prisoners are in
Angora. Later, at Konia, I saw some 300 French prisoners, deplorably
neglected, I regret to say, with little food, and dying like flies.
The insanitary condition of that camp was beyond description. The
Turks are perhaps not naturally cruel, or, at least, they confine
their atrocities to Armenia. They have their own particular views as
regards prisoners in general. Turkish prisoners in Turkish prisons
are not well treated. After all, a prisoner is not a very important
factor in the Turkish mind, and it should be remembered that the food
shortage extends throughout the whole area of German operations, always
excepting the German soldier himself. Even at the beautiful station of
Haidar Pasha I could not get a mouthful of bread or even a biscuit. The
only refreshment obtainable was unlimited German beer, produced by a
local German brewery.
The journey to Eski-Shehr was pleasant, although the trains were slow
and stopped for a considerable time at each station. There are no
express trains on the Baghdad Railway. There was, however, no paint on
the windows of the carriages, for which I was devoutly thankful, and
the carriages themselves were quite comfortable. As we sped along I
was much struck by the number of German non-commissioned officers that
I saw working and cultivating the land, which between Constantinople
and Konia is for the most part fertile, in co-operation with the
Turkish farmers. It was explained to me that more than 200 of these
non-commissioned officers had been sent to Turkey with the sole purpose
of teaching the Turkish farmers how to cultivate their ground. This,
again, is typical of German methods, but it has another significance.
If Berlin did not believe in the good faith of the Turks, and were not
convinced that Germany will remain the unofficial masters of Turkey,
all this trouble would certainly not be taken to instruct the people of
Asia Minor in the art of agriculture. There is nothing philanthropic
about the Germans.
All along the route until Konia was reached I saw these German
non-commissioned officers, and whenever the train stopped some of them
rushed up to the carriages asking for German newspapers, believing that
all the passengers came from the Fatherland, as, indeed, some of them
had.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account