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Arts & Book Review
February 28, 2015
First Edition
TRAGIC TALES OF THE GALLIPOLI CAMPAIGN
THE FALL OF THE OTTOMANS BY EUGENE ROGAN (Allen Lane, £25) » Order at
£20 inc. p&p from the Independent Bookshop
by GEORGE ARNEY
IT'S HARD TO IMAGINE soldiers having to face more nightmarish
conditions in the Great War than they did on the Western Front. But
that may be true of the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign, which was
intended by British politicians and generals to deliver a swift
knockout blow to the Ottoman Empire, but instead ended in an Ottoman
triumph and lengthened the conflict. Although casualties were fewer,
combatants who served on both fronts said that conditions at Gallipoli
were yet more vile. In France, troops could take leave well behind the
front lines; here there was no respite from the incessant shelling,
sniping and mines. The unburied bodies which lay between entrenched
enemy lines stank in the summer heat and attracted swarms of flies
carrying sickness from the dead to the living.
Amidst these horrors, there were moments of fraternity between the
armies. "Johnny Turk" was not demonised by the Western Allies as the
Germans were. At some points, the trenches were so close that gifts
could be exchanged. A Turkish soldier remembered throwing cigarettes,
raisins and nuts to the Anzacs, who reciprocated with cans of fruit
and jam. Another eyewitness account tells of a private in the
Lancashire Fusiliers who saved the life of an Ottoman soldier during a
battle and subsequently had his own life saved by the same man.
Such personal stories drawn from diaries and memoirs enliven Eugene
Rogan's satisfyingly straightforward narrative, and nowhere more so
than in his account of the genocide perpetrated by the Young Turk
leadership against the Empire's Armenian subjects.
The horrors of the enforced "death marches" are especially vivid.
Thousands were murdered by bands of armed men. Stragglers were
finished off by the guards. Others committed suicide by hurling
themselves into rivers, including the mother of one survivor, a
nine-year-old boy who was taken in by Kurdish villagers as the columns
of wretched Armenians passed through to their planned exile in the
Syrian deserts.
The creation of a homeland for Armenians in the Caucasus was one
outcome of the First World War. The dismemberment of the Ottoman
Empire led to many other territorial changes, above all in the Middle
East, where new borders were drawn by the triumphant Western allies to
further their imperialist ambitions. These borders have endured for
nearly a century - until last year, at least, when Isis declared an
Islamic Caliphate and abrogated the border between Iraq and Syria.
The last Caliph was the Ottoman Sultan, who theoretically exercised
religious authority over Muslims worldwide. British and French fears
that his call for jihad would inflame Muslim subjects in their
colonies turned out to be largely exaggerated. Rogan raises the
question of whether 21st-century fears of global jihad are equally
misplaced.
But the post-war settlement imposed by greedy and sometimes perfidious
European powers have left the Middle East riven with conflicts, not
least between Arabs and Israelis, to this day.
February 28, 2015
First Edition
TRAGIC TALES OF THE GALLIPOLI CAMPAIGN
THE FALL OF THE OTTOMANS BY EUGENE ROGAN (Allen Lane, £25) » Order at
£20 inc. p&p from the Independent Bookshop
by GEORGE ARNEY
IT'S HARD TO IMAGINE soldiers having to face more nightmarish
conditions in the Great War than they did on the Western Front. But
that may be true of the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign, which was
intended by British politicians and generals to deliver a swift
knockout blow to the Ottoman Empire, but instead ended in an Ottoman
triumph and lengthened the conflict. Although casualties were fewer,
combatants who served on both fronts said that conditions at Gallipoli
were yet more vile. In France, troops could take leave well behind the
front lines; here there was no respite from the incessant shelling,
sniping and mines. The unburied bodies which lay between entrenched
enemy lines stank in the summer heat and attracted swarms of flies
carrying sickness from the dead to the living.
Amidst these horrors, there were moments of fraternity between the
armies. "Johnny Turk" was not demonised by the Western Allies as the
Germans were. At some points, the trenches were so close that gifts
could be exchanged. A Turkish soldier remembered throwing cigarettes,
raisins and nuts to the Anzacs, who reciprocated with cans of fruit
and jam. Another eyewitness account tells of a private in the
Lancashire Fusiliers who saved the life of an Ottoman soldier during a
battle and subsequently had his own life saved by the same man.
Such personal stories drawn from diaries and memoirs enliven Eugene
Rogan's satisfyingly straightforward narrative, and nowhere more so
than in his account of the genocide perpetrated by the Young Turk
leadership against the Empire's Armenian subjects.
The horrors of the enforced "death marches" are especially vivid.
Thousands were murdered by bands of armed men. Stragglers were
finished off by the guards. Others committed suicide by hurling
themselves into rivers, including the mother of one survivor, a
nine-year-old boy who was taken in by Kurdish villagers as the columns
of wretched Armenians passed through to their planned exile in the
Syrian deserts.
The creation of a homeland for Armenians in the Caucasus was one
outcome of the First World War. The dismemberment of the Ottoman
Empire led to many other territorial changes, above all in the Middle
East, where new borders were drawn by the triumphant Western allies to
further their imperialist ambitions. These borders have endured for
nearly a century - until last year, at least, when Isis declared an
Islamic Caliphate and abrogated the border between Iraq and Syria.
The last Caliph was the Ottoman Sultan, who theoretically exercised
religious authority over Muslims worldwide. British and French fears
that his call for jihad would inflame Muslim subjects in their
colonies turned out to be largely exaggerated. Rogan raises the
question of whether 21st-century fears of global jihad are equally
misplaced.
But the post-war settlement imposed by greedy and sometimes perfidious
European powers have left the Middle East riven with conflicts, not
least between Arabs and Israelis, to this day.