Turkey ‘treated well’ Allied POWs in Gallipoli Battle

CANAKKALE, Turkey

Foreign journalists reporting on the 1915 Battle of Gallipoli praised the way Turkish troops treated prisoners of war, a Turkish historian has said.

"The foreign journalists commended, in particular, the way Turkish troops treated the foreign prisoners of war despite the heaviness and violence of the war," professor Selda Kaya Kilic at Ankara University's Department of History told The Anadolu Agency.

Speaking ahead of the upcoming 100th anniversary of the Battle of Gallipoli on April 25, Kilic said that the foreign journalists reporting on the battle called each of the Turkish troops a "hero," and said that they treated the prisoners of war "extremely well.”

This poignant day of remembrance, also called "Anzac Day" by Australians and New Zealanders, marks the cataclysmic, months-long violence of the WWI Allies’ ill-fated Gallipoli Campaign when Ottoman forces suffered huge losses defending Turkish shores from the invading Allies in WWI including the famous "Anzac" units fighting on behalf of Britain.

On April 25, 1915, eight months into the First World War, Allied soldiers landed on the shores of the Gallipoli peninsula -- Gelibolu in Turkish. The troops were there as part of a plan to open the Dardanelles Strait on Turkey's Aegean coast to Allied fleets, allowing them to threaten the Ottoman capital Istanbul.

The Allied forces, however, encountered strong and courageous resistance from the Turks, and the campaign turned out to be a costly failure.

Kilic said that a special permit or license was required to be a war correspondent during the First World War, and 24 journalists from 8 countries reported on the Battle of Gallipoli in addition to four Turkish journalists, according to official records.

The foreign journalists came from the U.S., U.K., Germany, Sweden, Bulgaria, Spain, Denmark and Hungary, and their reports, diaries, letters and photographs from the battlefield have "high historic value," professor Kilic said.

She said that one of the most notable and well-known journalists reporting on Gallipoli was the British war correspondent, Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, who described the battle as "a combat of giants in a giant country."

As for the shortcomings of the Ottoman Army regarding military equipment, Kilic said that the foreign journalists were especially impressed with the "superhuman efforts of the Turkish soldiers despite all hardship and challenges, and their resilience in the face of adverse conditions."

"However, most important of all, they were particularly impressed with the kind treatment offered to Allied prisoners of war despite the fact that they had come to invade their homeland."

Gelibolu is six hours south of Istanbul and attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors every year who come in April to commemorate 1915’s bloody conflict, known by Turks as the Battle of Canakkale.

CANAKKALE, Turkey

Foreign journalists reporting on the 1915 Battle of Gallipoli praised the way Turkish troops treated prisoners of war, a Turkish historian has said.

The Allied forces, however, encountered strong and courageous resistance from the Turks, and the campaign turned out to be a costly failure.

"However, most important of all, they were particularly impressed with the kind treatment offered to Allied prisoners of war despite the fact that they had come to invade their homeland."

Gelibolu is six hours south of Istanbul and attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors every year who come in April to commemorate 1915’s bloody conflict, known by Turks as the Battle of Canakkale.