Turkish soldiers

“ The Turkish armies opposed to us, including reserves and lines of communication troops, numbered some 90,000 men, of whom perhaps 5000 were cavalry, with about 400 guns. Their Commander-in-Chief was the German Marshal Liman von Sanders, who had his headquarters at Nazareth. Our own troops numbered about 120,000, including 25,000 cavalry, with 540 guns.
The morale of the enemy troops, both Turkish and German, was lower than it had been at any time since the beginning of the campaign. Many of the Turkish soldiers were ill-trained and of poor character. ”

“ The Turkish soldiers, on the other hand, are unused to motion—are mostly without experience, and lack confidence both in themselves and in their new system, which they but imperfectly understand. They have no particular attachment to their officers; while the Egyptians, though at first disliking military service, are said in a short time to become so fond of it, as to have and to desire no other home than their tent; they feel also, universally, a strong attachment both to Ibrahim Pasha and to Mahomet Ali. ”

“ Z-r-r-p! went thousands of rifles and dozens of machine-guns. Gad! How these Turks withered and fell. It was brutal, yet it was inspiring. Shrieks, curses, and groans were mixed with pitiful cries for "Allah!" "Allah!"
Bravely these Turkish soldiers died, and bravely the more fortunate came on. They tore through the barbed wire with a fiendish frenzy and leaped down on to parts of their enemy's lines. With that mad ferocity which only a Moslem fanatic can display, they plugged their bayonets into the first opposing man. Cold steel is hard to face. Few armies can face it. ”

“ The reason the Turkish population does not increase is this: The army has to be made up of Mohammedans, partly because the Sultan does not put arms into the hands of the Christians, for obvious reasons, since they have no motive to uphold and every motive to fight him, and partly because to be a soldier in Turkey is a holy service, the privilege of Mohammedans alone. As there is a large standing army, nearly all the Mohammedan youths have to become soldiers. ”

“ Not a single woman was to be seen; not a drop of wine or spirits could be procured for love or money. We were told that twenty years before, during the Russo-Turkish war, twenty-four thousand Turkish soldiers died here of typhus and dysentery.
Riding towards the camp, we met soldiers everywhere, 45some of them leisurely sitting by the roadside cooking their meals. As we rode past them an aide-de-camp of the Sultan turned to me and, pointing to the Albanian Redifs, said: “These fellows know no greater delight than that of being called upon to fight, and, if needs be, to die for the Sultan.” ”

“ We could not keep many troops with such ill-conditioned communications, but Turkish soldiers require far less supplies than European troops, and the enemy had done such remarkable things in surmounting supply difficulties that he was given credit for being able to support between sixty and seventy battalions in the line and reserve, with an artillery somewhat weaker than our own. ”

“ That there was a large amount of corruption in the officialdom of Turkey at that time was no doubt true; but the real samples of national character, the men in the rank and file of the army, I found to be simple-minded, courteous, honourable, and honest in time of peace, while braver men on the battle-field than those who fought under Osman Pasha at Plevna are not to be found in Europe. The magnificent physique and robust constitution of the ordinary Turkish private soldiers I believe to be due mainly to two causes. ”

“ The governors and other Ottoman officials were as corrupt, rapacious, and arbitrary as they had ever been. There was no security for life or property. The Turkish soldiers plundered the villages of Christians which they were sent to protect. Bands of brigands, sometimes wearing the uniforms of Greek, sometimes of Bulgarian soldiers, devastated the country. No attempt was made by the Young Turks to put in force any part of the reforms which had been proposed by the Commission appointed by the Great Powers after the Congress of Berlin. ”

“ It was lucky for the bully that a British captain came along at the moment, or the fellow would have got the full force of the sentry’s bayonet.
I heard Turkish prisoners say that the German officers treated the Turks with contempt, and it was a marvel that the Turks had not risen and slaughtered their so-called benefactors wholesale.
While on this point, I would like to say that as a fighter the Turk is a gentleman. We would go for them hammer and tongs in the ordinary way of scrapping ”

“ Looking through a pair of field-glasses, I have seen German officers during an attack by the Turks follow [123] them with revolvers in hand—your German officer doesn’t lead, he drives, having a precious regard for his carcase, and no earthly sense of honour—and I have seen them shoot Turkish soldiers who have fallen because they have been shot in the leg or have stooped to pick up a rifle which had been dropped. ”

“ With such a people, the majority completely apathetic, a minority wildly optimistic, it is difficult to see how anything like a common-sense view of matters is likely to obtain, and{292} without such common sense Turkey’s place in the comity of European nations will probably be filled by people with a better-adjusted sense of proportion.
Of course, reports of Servian excesses, atrocities, are spread about, chiefly disseminated by Continental papers. That soldiers flushed by victory are liable to break away from strict discipline is a lamentable fact. ”

“ War, however, was continued with Greece and Montenegro. As a result of the campaign the Turks had been defeated in every engagement by Greeks, Serbs, Bulgars, and Montenegrins. They were driven from Macedonia and from nearly the whole of Thrace and Epirus. They still, however, retained Adrianople, Janina, and Scutari. It was only when in defence of such cities, or behind such lines as those of Tchatalja that the Turkish soldiers showed the tenacity and courage for which they had been famous. Whenever they met the enemy in the open field they were always defeated. ”

“ The European war makes the Turks think that this is their golden opportunity for turkifying the empire from the one end to the other. All non-Moslems, mere boys and young men of 25 to 30 years of age and grown men up to 45, are being arrested by the police and secret service force, and dragged to the barracks, like convicts, and if they fail to pay the fifty or eighty pounds Turkish ($230 or $350) for exemption from military service, they are forced to work as "assistant-soldiers." ”

“ But our rest and peace were smashed at dawn on the following morning, [55] when we were thrown into confusion by a heavy Turkish attack. The Turks had advanced into the firing-line on the opposite side of the hill. There were plenty of them and they had machine-guns, while we were quite helpless, having no rifles nor equipment—indeed, many of us had not even our jackets on, as we were taking it easy.
There was quite a stampede for the time being, and some one passed the order, “Every man for himself!” ”

“ Any one who has observed his career closely knows that his actions are diametrically opposed to the principles of the Mussulman law and creed.” Moreover, the Turkish soldier, like the soldiers in other armies and the majority of116 healthy young men, can be appealed to through his stomach, and he naturally acquired an affection for and confidence in these majors, captains, and lieutenants of the new school who sympathised with him, pitied his wretched condition, and with their own money, or the Committee funds, supplemented his miserable rations and supplied him with comforts. ”

“ And while this mass of suffering Eastern humanity was but fitfully and quite inadequately cared for by the Turkish authorities, Western humanity was putting forth its finest efforts to alleviate this awful distress by all the means of Western civilization, against which the Turk is making his last stand. In the old Seraglio, at Galata and Pera hospitals have been opened to receive the sick and wounded soldiers of the Sultan, and they now readily make their way to where the Red Crescent flies by the side of the{154} ensigns of Great European Powers. ”

“ If we have been justified in the conclusion that there was little or no motive for the Turkish army in the shape of religious fanaticism and the desire to spread Islam, but that plunder and the hope of acquiring lands for distribution among the soldiers was its main inducement, it followed that this incentive to victory and valour was almost entirely absent in the later period when the Empire was on the defensive, when it was no longer a question of making fresh conquests, but of retaining what had already been won. ”

“ I have ended them with the conviction that there was no missionary zeal whatever for Islam in the Turkish armies and their leaders who invaded Europe, and that their main incentive was the hope of plunder by the sack of cities, the sale of captives as slaves or for harems, and the confiscation of land and its distribution among soldiers as a reward for bravery. I have also concluded that the decay of the military spirit and the shrinkage of Empire8 was largely due to the absence of these motives and rewards when the Turks were on the defensive. ”

“ The Turks gave us no chance and we gave them none; but at the same time they did not do anything that I would call really dirty or out of the way. A lot of them were fine fellows physically. Some of the Turkish diggers we got as prisoners had no fighting gear on them at all. They were just peasants who had been brought up to do the work.
At last I fell ill with dysentery and gastritis, and came home on a huge hospital ship, with four thousand more sick and wounded soldiers. ”

“ They waited patiently, some of them for days, to be transported across to Asia Minor, where, on the “native heath” of their race, they propose to start life afresh. Being Turks, they are no doubt used to Turkish rule, and prefer it to any other.
Sadder scenes I saw when walking up from the station past the lower gate of the Sublime Porte, towards the old Seraglio. Here were hundreds of soldiers, some sick, some slightly wounded, making their way to the hospitals established in the buildings of the Seraglio enclosure. ”

“ While the Balkan Kingdoms were mobilizing the armies which have since swept triumphant over Thrace, Macedonia, Thessaly, armies composed of the whole manhood of each nation, not of hired soldiers, Great Britain was collecting troops for Cambridgeshire manœuvres, with much self-laudation, and the assistance of the Territorial force, got together a number about equal to Montenegro’s first levy for the war with Turkey ”

“ In view of these many serious changes, it is not difficult to appreciate the causes for the falling off of the morale of the Ottoman army and for its failure to maintain the reputation it had achieved in the three centuries of conquest and extension of the Empire. The war which is now raging in the Near East has shown that the Ottoman soldiers, when organized, and in part led, by competent foreign officers, when fighting pro aris et focis, and especially when in defence of well fortified lines, have a great military value. ”

“ They have landed some 6-inch howitzers from the naval boats, and these are manned by marines. Firing lyddite, and manned by experts, they gave the Turks the time of their lives. The Turkish artillery is outclassed by them. Their big guns on the forts by the shore have a moving platform and consequently were hard to find; however, the boats got wind of where they were, and they started to shell our fellows last night at dusk. ”

“ Twenty thousand of its citizens enrolled in its defence. The Turkish batteries shattered the walls. There were frequent sorties without avail. It was said that the Ottoman army, with its enormous superiority in numbers, might easily have carried the city by storm, but that Kara Mustapha hoped to gain it by capitulation, in which case the wealth of the city would be at his own disposal as representative of the Sultan, whereas, if it were taken by assault, the great booty would fall mainly to the soldiers. ”

“ There is also nothing to show that the Ottoman soldiers were animated by any religious zeal in their campaigns in Europe. The main cause of their military efficiency was the organization of the army effected by Orchan and perfected by Murad I. It offered immense rewards to the soldiers for victories in battle and for personal valour, in the share of booty and plunder levied in the conquered districts, of captives to be sold as slaves, of women for wives or concubines or to be sold for harems, and of lands to be distributed as fiefs. ”

“ A detachment of troops was sent to guard each embassy. Bodies of regulars, cadets and volunteers patrolled the streets of Pera and Galata, shooting down such Marines and Kurds as were attempting to loot the shops, and making prisoners of all the soldiers belonging to the garrison whom they came across. In Stamboul the troops seized hundreds of spies, softas and hodjas, who, after stirring up the evil passions of the garrison and the populace, had taken refuge in the mosques. ”

“ High explosives cleared the way for their advance, and cheering and yelling they went over the parapet. The Turks in the front-line trenches, completely demoralized, fled to the rear. A few, too weak or too sorely wounded to run, surrendered.
The Turk's dislike for German officers.
Prisoners taken in this engagement told us that the Turkish rank and file heartily hated their German officers. One prisoner said that he had been an officer, but since the outbreak of this war had been replaced by a German. At present the Turks are officered entirely by Germans. ”