Rafael de Nogales, a Venezuelan in Ottoman service

[Peter H]

The Venezuelan adventurer who fought against the Americans in Cuba in 1898 and later became a "Turkish General of Cavalry" in WW1.Has anyone any details on Nogales(1879-1937)?

[Peter H]

From his Memoirs of a Soldier of Fortune,1932:

PERHAPS battles are not always fought by efficient soldiers. Consider, for instance, our attack on the Suez Canal in January, 1915. That affair, according to the majority of the Turkish soldiers who took part in that expedition, turned out to be a failure because two of our Takaut reserve officers, of the old "Hamidian school," were carrying, concealed in their saddlebags, several chickens and a rooster so as to have fresh eggs for breakfast. The enemy, according to our askars, never suspected our presence on the eastern shore of the Suez Canal until dawn-when the blessed rooster suddenly stuck its head out of the saddlebag and let out a sonorous "cock-a-doodle-doo" which put the wary Britishers wise to our scheme.

But for that confounded rooster our askars claimwe would probably have won the World War; because by interrupting the traffic on the Suez Canal we could have cut off England from India and Australia as well as France from her north and central African possessions, since our occupation of the western shore of the Canal would, undoubtedly, have caused a revolt in Egypt, and this, in its turn, a general revolt of Islam against Occidental world supremacy.

The Turks were excellent artillerymen and machine-gunners. During the Gallipoli campaign, for instance, during which some of the mightiest battleships the world has ever seen were sent to the bottom of the Mediterranean by the Turkish mines and submarines, those two splendid arms of the Ottoman army filled the forty or fifty thousand graves which our gallant foes left on the golden shores and historic battlefields of ancient Troy.

Our machine-gunners and artillerymen, however, were not the only bravos in the Ottoman army; even our auxiliary troops, for instance our sappers; were endowed with extraordinary sang-froid and determination. During our attack on the Suez Canal, in January, 1915, one of the outstanding events was the voluntary sacrifice, not to say suicide, of a company of Ottoman sappers who, after crossing the canal by means of a hastily constructed pontoon bridge, let themselves be killed to the last man rather than surrender.Our cavalrymen were also excellent soldiers; but they did not seem to husband their mounts the way they should have done, probably on account of their Tartar descent. It should not be forgotten that centuries ago the Mongolians, like their pupils, the Cossacks, used their horses not only for warfare but as beasts of burden, to transport their troops across the steppes and deserts between Turkestan and India, China and Hungary.

The only blot on the Turkish army was the Takaut officers. I still remember with consternation the various months when I had to deal with them while I held the position of mufetish, or inspector of our Mamoureh-Kadme service of supply center in northern Syria, in 1915.

The majority of those Takauts belonged to the retired officers' corps of ex-Sultan Abu-Ul-Hamid's regime; that is to say, they had been recruited from among the sergeants and corporals for fear that graduate officers, if given the command of troops, might organize a revolution. Those "regimentaries," or "old regime reserve officers," were, as a rule, abhorred throughout the country because of their rapacity and rascally instincts.

They were only employed in the commissary departments. They represented in my opinion the greatest plague that devastated Turkey during the World War, because locusts, although voracious, usually destroyed nothing except harvests and pastures; while those inveterate parasites sold the medicines and rations of man and beast and, had they found a buyer, would probably have sold the locomotives of our Baghdad railroad.

That is why the officers' corps of the Young Turks who dethroned Sultan Abu-UI-Hamid was composed almost entirely of regular army officers, that is to say, not of officers who had risen from the ranks, but of military academy graduates belonging in many cases to the most aristocratic families of the empire. The most efficient arm was represented in our Ottoman army by the infantry; by those fierce askars who once laid the banners of over a hundred conquered nations at the feet of their mighty sultans.

[Peter H]

More...

While fighting and running alternately on our various fronts I had opportunity to observe our Turkish soldiers rather closely. We hardly ever dared to order them to attack with the bayonet, for we had no way of recalling them after they had started to charge. We did not use bugles in action, only whistles.

As soon as the command to attack was given, off they went, shouting " Allah, Allah," to die to the last man beneath the concentrated enemy artillery and machine-gun fire. Those askars never looked back, only forward.

In the Bukowina, in northern Rumania, for instance, we had two or three Turkish divisions helping the Germans and Austrians stem the Russians' advance. Every time the mujiks attacked the Austrians our Turks had invariably to rescue Emperor Joseph's soldiers and drive back the enemy. So much so that finally orders were given that the Austrians' military activities should be limited to digging trenches and to preparing food for the Turks who, in exchange for the Austrians' menial work, would do all the fighting alone.

One day the Turks were not satisfied with the way the Austrians had dug out a new set of trenches and went on a strike ; they attacked the Russians without orders and refused to return unless the Austrians were ordered to rebuild their trenches in a proper way.

Whenever I entered one of our barracks and watched our soldiers fixing up their beds, mending their uniforms, or squat- ting cross-legged on the floor, reading their prayer books, I could not help feeling as if I had entered a cage full of tame lions and Bengal tigers.

Another of the peculiarities of the Turks was their preference for bread. They ate, as a rule, very little meat or vegetables; but bread, no matter whether fresh, stale, black or white, they .would eat by the bushel, probably on account of their Koran, which, like the Bible, speaks feelingly about "our daily bread."

Our soldiers were always buried lying sidewise, with their faces turned south, in the direction of Mecca and Medina, the Holy Cities of Islam. The feathers of their religious sentiment were frequently ruffled by the thoughtlessness of some of their German instructors, as happened once in our military camp of Baalbeck, in central Syria, where Major X had two parallel rows of new baths constructed for the convenience of his men. The latter, however, to his great disappointment, bluntly refused to make use of those comfortable newly dug baths. Luckily, after a while, some friendly soul whispered into the major s ear :

"Don't you see that those baths have been dug with their entrances toward the north instead of the south, in the direction of Mecca and Medina ? "

Only then did the major understand. Naturally, no True Believer would ever turn his back on the Holy Cities while taking a bath. That would be rank sacrilege. So he had the baths reconstructed, facing south, whereupon his askars blessed Allah for having enlightened him. They reverently bowed toward Mecca and Medina every time they took a bath.

The indomitable courage,or fanaticism; call it what you will,and the traditional boldness of the Osmanlis, frequently during the World War offered examples of that ferocious endurance which, from time immemorial, has made them famed as one of the most valiant and warlike nations of the Old World.

During our Caucasus campaign I repeatedly ran across trenches filled with corpses-the frozen bodies of our askars, both officers and men who had frozen to death rather than budge from the positions they had been ordered to hold at any price. During those dreadful months among the eternal snows of the Caucasus the Muscovite high command had ordered its Russian divisions to be replaced by the Siberian Iron Legions, because even the Russian mujiks could not withstand any longer the terrible cold.

We were fighting most of the time up to our necks in the snow, at an altitude anywhere from ten to twelve thousand feet above sea level Nevertheless the Turks, who had been rushed to the front with hardly any preparations at all, or even an adequate service of supplies, owing to the rapidity with which things had happened, stood their ground wonderfully well; sometimes even without overcoats or proper footwear; in many cases without the necessary medical attention and, most of the time, with hardly anything to eat except a crust of bread. Those were men who knew how to fight and die without a murmur, without ever showing the slightest sign of insubordination.

I have never yet heard a Turkish soldier complain of hunger or thirst. Those askars of ours would file along, grim and silent, sometimes with no more nourishment than a crust of stale bread or a handful of olives, without letting a complaint or even a whisper of dismay cross their fevered lips.

Though the Mohammedan religion may appear admirable and inspiring to the occasional unbiased observer, it nevertheless has certain faults which are a regular nuisance and caused us many unnecessary losses during the war. For instance, its precept: "Thou shalt not kill inoffensive animals." How often did I look on in dismay, and absolutely powerless to prevent it, while our kind-hearted askars, on a sunny day in the snow- covered mountains of the Caucasus, squatted around their camp-fires examining their underwear and instead of squeezing the cooties to death dropped them on the floor still alive; whereupon those cooties wagged their tails with appreciation and clambered immediately up the nearest soldier's leg to thrive and multiply.

[Tosun Saral]

http://www.tallarmeniantale.com/nogales ... etches.htm

[Peter H]

Thanks but there doesn't seem to be much on him on the net.

In Spanish:

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_de_ ... %C3%A9ndez


TIME magazine 1932:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 18,00.html

Looking like Peck's bad boy, Venezuelan General Nogales stands in full Turkish uniform in the frontispiece of his book to give readers a foretaste of mischief to come. It comes: should the supply run short in one hemisphere there is bound to be plenty in the other. The doughty general craves trouble as a cat craves fish, can nose it from afar. Do or die is no mere shibboleth to him, but sober truth. "For certain men not to do is to die, to die a spiritual and very disagreeable death. From such a death I have been running all my life."

He started sprinting young. At the age of 20 he called President Castro, dictator of Venezuela, a torturer and a bully, got out of the country quickly. Since then an almost continual exile, he has retained throughout his roving career "one fixed specific purpose only: the liberation of my country."

A killing along the Rio Grande made Nogales jump for Asia. Then he did military intelligence work prior to the Sino-Japanese War, cleared out to Alaska in time to save most of his skin. He followed gold down into Nevada, went broke with the boom, rustled cattle along the Mexican border. When President Gomez relieved Castro as dictator of Venezuela, Exile Nogales made tracks for home. He soon fell out with Gomez too, harassed his government with interminable border fights. Failure was just threatening to rob him of military adventure when the World War began. He tried to get in it with the Allies, ended up with the Turks. Nogales Bey got plenty of excitement fighting Britishers, Russians, Armenians in the Near East.

Since the War General Nogales has written Four Years Beneath the Crescent, The Looting of Nicaragua. If jaguars, hurricanes, boa constrictors, crocodiles, firing squads do not get him first, Venezuela may be liberated yet.

[infantry]

Even though I tried to find his assignments within Ottoöan military but could not pin point anything. Certainly he did not command any regular unit higher than company which reasonably good lists are available. His name is not listed in the regiment and higher staff positions. His rank is also problematic. Most probably major and certainly not a general. As far as I understand he served with irregular militia type units including tribal warriors.

He became popular recently. Several Latin American researchers are currently trying to write a new biography about. He is also fashionable in Turkey right now. I remember seeing at least two articles. A new book also published recently but I did not see it.

Mehmet Necati Kutlu, TÜRKiYE' DE BiR GEZGiN SÖVALYE NOGALES MENDEZ
(Istanbul, Gendas A.S., 2000)

Several years ago Venezuelan Embassy of Turkey sponsored a slim volume about. Not a good one.

[Peter H]

Thanks.

I had my doubts he was a General.It appears he was in the vicinity of Bulgaria in 1914,somehow knew von der Goltz,and waltzed into Ottoman service.

Regards
Peter