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| German Naval Officers and Sailors Manning an Observation Post on the Dardanelles |
Ayhan Aktar, Chair Professor, Istanbul Bilgi University
It is unfortunate that the stories have not also been recorded of the German soldiers who fought within the Ottoman army during the Gallipoli campaign. Near the beginning of World War I, the number of German staff and military personnel was around 1,100, but toward the end of 1918, this figure reached 18,000 to 20,000. Although initially the memoirs of a few officers were published, including those of Field Marshal Liman von Sanders, the commanding officer of the 5th Army, the notorious bombardment of Potsdam in 1945 destroyed the German military archives and prevented comprehensive academic research being done on this topic. [However, Professor Aktar has extracted some information about German participation in the fighting from other available sources, which are not cited for this article.]
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| Admiral Usedom Accompanies Kaiser Wilhelm II and Enver Pasha on a 1917 Visit to the Straits |
If we need to look for "heroes" for 18 March, we are better off looking at Cevat (later Çobanlı) Pasha, the commander of the Fortified Zone at Dardanelles, and German Admiral Guido von Usedom, who was entrusted by Enver Pasha, the Minister of War, with the special mission of defending the Straits, that is, the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus (Istanbul). In fact, these two men prepared the plans, laid the mines, commanded the forces, and defended the Dardanelles on 18 March 1915. . .
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| Lower Right: German Naval Personnel Serving on Nusret |
We also hear a lot on these occasions about the legendary minelayer Nusret. Yes, the Nusret did lay mines parallel to the shore at the Bay of Erenköy in the morning of 8 March, causing catastrophic damage to the enemy fleet ten days later. Thanks to these mines, the enemy battleships Irresistible and Ocean were sunk and three more battleships were put out of action. Recently, it was established also that the Bouvet sank due to artillery fire coming from Ottoman coastal artillery. Rightly, we hear about Captain Hakki of Tophane, the captain of the Nusret, and Major Hafiz Nazmi, the commanding officer of the Mine Group Command in the navy. But no one mentions the critical roles played by German military personnel on the Nusret that day, such as the mine specialist Lieutenant Colonel Geehl, the torpedo specialist Senior NCO Rudolf Bettaque, and the navy engineer Captain Reeder, who managed to run the Nusret’s engines without releasing dark smoke through her funnel. This made it less visible to enemy reconnaissance.
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| Lt. Hans Woermann, KIA |
Leaving aside the Ottoman officers who contributed to the victory but who are not mentioned, our Turkish "national history" deems the German officers non-existent. On 18 March, while there were 79 dead and wounded among Ottoman forces, the loss in the German camp was 18 soldiers. So, for every four Ottoman losses, there was one German loss too. In the same fashion, the loss of German artillery Lieutenant Hans Woermann is glossed over. In his memoirs, Colonel Hans Kannengiesser, the commander of the 16th Army Corps at the Suvla battles in August 1915, describes the funeral of Lieutenant Hans Woermann, as follows: "As befitting an officer of the Turco-German Alliance, the Salâ was recited from the mosque’s minaret [in Çanakkale] and, his body wrapped under the Turkish flag, his face was turned by a Hodja toward Mecca as he was buried’. Ottoman officers did not hesitate to show their respect to the comrades-in-arms who died in defence of the Ottoman fatherland. Dismissing the dead of their allies and ‘crying only after their own dead" is a skill unfortunately developed by the historians of the Turkish Republic! . . .
Sources: "Gallipoli commemorations of Turkish youth tell us much about politics in Turkey", The Conversation, April 23, 2018; "Defence Preparations of the Dardanelles", Die Schlacht von Gallipoli 1915; Encyclopedia 1914-1918
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