German volunteer pioneers at Gallipoli

[bob lembke]

I see many old friends posting in this area.

Like the well-known "broken record", I again ask if anyone has information on one or two topics.

My father served in the German volunteer pioneer company (Freiwilliger=Pionier=Kompagnie) at Gallipoli. I think that the company immediately had 80% casualties, including many sick, and that my father arrived in a group of replacements, smuggled through Romania. He was not wounded, but got malaria. I believe that he served at the ANZAC beach-head, possibly in mining warfare.

Research on this is very difficult. Does anyone have any information on this, or a source. I can easily read German and French. My efforts to translate Modern Turkish have been incredibly slow and painful, although I might be able to get small passages translated.

Secondary topics of interest are the training of Turkish storm units in the German fashion, probably only in Galicia; the Austrian battery of 24 cm mortars that arrived in September at ANZAC bridgehead (my father say them and told me about it); and whatever was done with the 30 flame throwers that the Germans gave the Turkish Army.

Any help is gratefully received.

Bob Lembke

[Peter H]

Bob

Does the Reichsarchiv Dardanelles monograph have any mention of this?

Regards
Peter

[bob lembke]

Hi, Peter;

I read the Schlachten volume on the Dardanellen some years ago, when I had just started reaing German, and found almost nothing. However, I should go thru it again, with my currently better German.

As read several years ago, the obvious sources; the Schlachten volume, Kannengeister, Liman von Sanders, had almost nothing, possibly 2-3 sentences between them.

Bob Lembke

[Bill Woerlee]

Bob

G'day mate

I was wondering how long it would take you to take a trip over to here, especially since GWF has run out of bandwidth. LOL.

Let's hope we can uncover more information about your father's war service from 3rd parties. It is always a frustration trying to uncover this.

In relation to my father, finding out his war service has been horrendous - mainly because most of it was never documented due to the furtive nature of his service - a guerilla with the underground. Hardly any documentation kept by the partisans so we can only guess. Yet there are plenty of books around dealing with aspects of his service.

Frustrating.

Cheers

Bill

[Peter H]

Vincenz Müller of the DDR:

viewtopic.php?t=63455

From Shawn:

Note his Turkish decorations. In mid-1915, Leutnant Müller was detached to the German military mission in Constantinople. While serving as a platoon leader in the Turkish Pioneer Command at Gallipoli, he was wounded by a grenade fragment in November 1915. After the withdrawal of the Allies from Gallipoli, he transferred to Baghdad where he served as an advisor with a Turkish pioneer battalion on the Persian Front. He returned to Germany at the end of 1916 a sick man having contracted malaria and typhus. In June 1917, he volunteered to serve as a pioneer tactics instructor at the Turkish Officers Pioneer School in Cospoli. Six months later he returned to Germany. See Genosse General! Die Militärelite der DDR in biografischen Skizzen edited by Hans Ehlert and Armin Wagner (Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin, Germany, 2003) for further details on the life and career of Generalleutnant Müller.