Turkish Divisions 1914-18

[Steen Ammentorp]

I don't know whether this would be of interest but here we go. A list of Turkish Army commanders 1914-1918:

1st Army
Nov. 1914 - Mar. 1915: Otto Liman von Sanders
Apr. 1915 - Oct. 1915: Kolmar Freiherr von der Goltz
Oct. 1915 - Jul. 1918: Esat Pasha
Jul. 1918 - Nov. 1918: ?

2nd Army
Nov 1914 - Nov. 1914: Cemal Pasha
Nov 1914 - Feb. 1916: Vehip Pasha
Feb. 1916 - Jan. 1917: Ahmet Izzet Pasha
Jan. 1917 - Feb. 1917: Mustafa Kemal Pasha
Feb. 1917 - Oct. 1917: Fevzi Pasha
Oct. 1917 - Aug. 1918: Mustafa Kemal Pasha
Aug. 1918 - Nov. 1918: Nihat Pasha

3rd Army
Nov. 1914 - Dec. 1914: Hasan Izzet Pasha
Dec. 1914 - Jan. 1915: Enver Pasha
Jan. 1915 - Mar. 1915: Hafiz Hakki Pasha
Mar. 1915 - Feb. 1916: Mahmut Kamil Pasha
Feb. 1916 - Jun. 1918: Vehip Pasha
Jun. 1918 - Nov. 1918: Esat Pasha

4th Army
Nov. 1914 - Nov. 1914: Zekki Pasha
Nov. 1914 - Sep. 1917: Cemal Pasha (Disbanded)
Mar. 1918 - Oct. 1918: Cemal Pasha (Reconstituted and disbanded)

5th Army
Mar. 1915 - Feb. 1918: Otto Liman von Sanders
Feb. 1918 - Nov. 1918: ?

6th Army
Jul. 1915 - Dec. 1915: Nurettin Pasha
Dec. 1915 - May 1916: Kolmar Freiherr von der Goltz
May 1916 - Jul. 1918: Halil Pasha
Jul. 1918 - Nov. 1918: Ali Ihsan Pasha

7th Army
Aug. 1917 - Oct. 1917: Mustafa Kemal Pasha
Oct. 1917 - Aug. 1918: Fevzi Pasha
Aug. 1918 - Nov. 1918: Mustafa Kemal Pasha

8th Army
Sep. 1917 - Dec. 1917: Friedrich Freiherr Kreß von Kressenstein
Dec. 1917 - Oct. 1918: Cevat Pasha (Disbanded)

9th Army
Jul. 1918 - Nov. 1918: Yakup Sevki Pasha

Source: G. Zivkoviz : Heer und Flottenführer der Welt

Does anybody have information about the two blanks?

Kind Regards
Steen Ammentorp
The Generals of World War II

[Peter H]

Steen,
Good work!

Erickson quotes an order from Enver Pasha that the 1st Army was "hereby inactivated and all assets and units will fall under the control of the Fifth Army",finalised by mid 1918.

The Fifth Army commander on Gallipoli remains a mystery.

Peter

[Peter H]

Hafiz Hakki Pasha,commander of 3rd Army 1915,was a Colonel on the Turkish General Staff 1914(2nd Assistant Chief of Staff).He was in Berlin,in talks with the Germans,when Turkey entered the war.

In December 1914 he arrived at the Caucasus Front with Enver Pasha.Both he and Enver envisaged a Tannenberg type encirclement battle to defeat the Russians.Enver promoted him in command of X Corps,3rd Army.After the Sarikamis defeat,Hafiz Hakki took over the command of 3rd Army,again with the patronage of Enver,on the 8th January 1915.The newly promoted Brigadier Hakki Bey died of typhus on the 12th February 1915:an epidemic was sweeping thru 3rd Army at the time.

[Steen Ammentorp]

Thanks Peter,
Great info.

I better give the Army Group Commanders as well.

AG Caucasus
Mar. 1916 - Jul. 1917: Ahmet Izzet Pasha
Jul. 1917 - Dec. 1917: Vehip Pasha

AG Yildirim
Jul. 1917 - Feb. 1918: Erich von Falkenhayn
Feb. 1918 - Oct. 1918: Otto Liman von Sanders
Oct. 1918 - Nov. 1918: Mustafa Kamel Pasha


AG East
Jun. 1918 - Nov. 1918: Halil Pasha

Kind Regards
Steen Ammentorp
The Generals of World War II

Btw. Would people be interested in some pre/post war info on the turkish commanders?

[Peter H]

Steen,
Any further info would be appreciated.

A liitle known connection between Mustafa Kemal and the his opponents,the Australians,is that both ended up serving at Tobruk,Libya during the 20th Century.

In 1911 Kemal commanded Ottoman forces at Tobruk,Derna in battles against the Italians.

Peter

PS I'm curious about the birth year of Cemal as well.Some sources say 1872;Erickson quotes 1881.

[Peter H]

Halil Pasha(1882-1957) was the uncle of Enver Pasha.After serving in the Balkan Wars,he was Constantinople Area Commander,attached to 1st Army,in 1914.

Colonel Halil was designated commander of the 5th Expeditionary Force sent from Thrace to the Caucasus in December 1914.He was then promoted and transferred to Mesopotamia as Commander of XVIII Corps.He took over command of 6th Army after von der Goltz died.He later claimed the surname Kut to commerate his victory over the British at the Siege of Kut.

In 1917 he commanded the Eastern army,Caucasia,taking over AG East in 1918 operating in Azerbaijan.In August 1918 his troops captured Baku.

[Peter H]

Turkish troops take over Anzac Cove,Gallipoli,after the Allied pull out.

[Peter H]

From The Great war,1934.

Cemal visits the Germans in Flanders 1918.

[Steen Ammentorp]

Halil Pasha(1882-1957) was the uncle of Enver Pasha.After serving in the Balkan Wars,he was Constantinople Area Commander,attached to 1st Army,in 1914.

Strange I got his dates as (1864-1923). His name is also written as Khalil Pasha or Khalil Pasa.

Kind Regards
Steen Ammentorp
The Generals of World War II

[Peter H]

Steen,
Pasa is old Turkish for Pasha.

Khalil Pasha was the Governor of Baghdad 1916/17,a different person than Halil.

I support Erickson's conclusion that a lot of Western sources mix up Ottoman identities,and if one source gets it wrong,others follow.

Even the excellent FirstWorldWar.com has mixed up both identities:

http://www.firstworldwar.com/bio/khalil.htm

Nurettin Pasha commanded the 6th Army during 1915 contrary to what this article states.

Here's a pic of the portly Khalil,very different than the photo shown of Halil seated next to Townshend in that photo.

Peter

[Steen Ammentorp]

Peter,

I suspected a mix up of identities. Those Turkish names can be very tricky and beside the spelling (Ahmet or Ahmed) you find them with different titles Bey or Pasha (I did new about Pasa) and then their names is normally written without first names. So it is difficult to know when you got the right person.

So I would agree with you and Erickson. However this leaves me with a small question wasn’t it then Khalil Pasha rather than Halil Pasha that were Enver Pasha’s uncle? I have seen your picture of Khalil describe as his uncle (It would also make a bit more sense otherwise Enver and his uncle would be of same age).

Kind Regards
Steen Ammentorp
The Generals of World War II

[Peter H]

Steen,
Good point.What Erickson is saying is that both Enver and Halil were born in the same year,1881.But in real life I have also come across a uncle and nephew being of the same age.

Consideration should also be taken of Halil's meteorical rise between 1914-18,and the fact that both Enver and Halil fled together to Berlin in 1919.Halil was accussed of war crimes against the Armenians.Enver's younger brother,Nuril Pasha,also commanded the Army of Islam that captured Baku in 1918 while under Halil's command.

Perhaps a Turkish member of the Forum can assist?

Peter

[Peter H]

This might be of interest as well--Enver's body was recovered and buried with military honour's in Turkey in 1996.

Turkish Daily News 5 Aug 1996

ISTANBUL- A state funeral was held in Istanbul Sunday for Enver Pasha (1881-1922), the mercurial and tempestuous leader of the Young Turks revolution and a member of the triumvirate that ruled the Ottoman Empire during World War I. In military ceremonies, attended by President Suleyman Demirel, ministers, deputies and Turkey's top generals, authorities buried the remains of the Ottoman general and former war minister, returned to Turkey Saturday from Tajikistan, at the Hrriyet-i Ebediye Tepesi, a memorial hill in the Caglayan district.

"Enver Pasha, with his faults and merits, is an important symbol of our recent history. We have no doubt that history will reach the proper judgements through evaluating past events," President Suleyman Demirel said, adding that Enver Pasha's separation from his home country and exile had come to an end. State Minister Abdullah Gul said that Enver Pasha was a general who had died along with thousands of others, thus attaining the status of a martyr, while fighting to unite all Muslim and Turkic countries in Asia. "We will build a monument on the spot where Enver Pasha's grave used to be," he said. The hill contains an impressive monument 12 meters high commemorating the 1908 Young Turks revolution that restored the constitution and ended the absolute monarchy in the Ottoman Empire as well as the tombs of many of the leaders of the Committee of Union and Progress, the political group that ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1900-1918.

The funeral began with a religious ceremony at Sisli Mosque, in downtown Istanbul, where thousands of Turks gathered. The flag-draped coffin was then carried through Sisli in a hearse to Memorial Hill where Enver Pasha was buried in a newly built tomb next to Talat Pasha, one of the Ottoman World War I triumvirate. The ceremony was held on the 74th anniversary of his death. Enver Pasha entered the Turkish army and was sent to Salonika, where he instigated the Young Turks revolt. He served as military attache in Berlin in 1909, returning to Istanbul to help suppress a counterrevolution. He eventually became leader of the triumvirate, which included Ottoman Prime Minister Talat Pasha and Cemal Pasha, the marine minister, that led the Ottoman Empire to its defeat in World War I on the side of Germany and the losing Central Powers and to its dismemberment.

After the end of the war, he was court-martialed in 1919 for signing a secret deal with the Germans and sentenced to one-year in exile and deprived of his civil rights. He was also blamed for leading the disastrous Sarikamish winter military campaign in 1914, during which nearly 70,000 Ottoman soldiers froze to death in the cold weather.

After the war, he fled from Istanbul to Germany and eventually to Russia where he sided first with the White Russians and then the Bolsheviks, with whom he finally broke to lead a failed Pan-Turkist movement aimed to unite all Turks under one flag in Central Asia. He was killed in a battle on Aug. 4, 1922, leading a cavalry charge against Bolshevik troops near Dusanbe.

The Turkish delegation responsible for bringing back the body of Enver Pasha from Tajikistan have said that they were impressed by the local people's commitment to the Turkish national hero.

The residents of the remote mountain village of Obtar in Belcivan, Tajikistan, say that they understand that the Pasha, whom they deem to be a 'martyr' and a 'hero,' is going back to his motherland, but that they feel sad that they are parting from him. They say that it is a consolation that a monument will be built in the place of the grave. The Turkish delegation is also bringing back a letter to Mahpeyker Hanim, Enver Pasha's daughter from a "close friend of her father whom she does not know," living in the village of Obtar. Muzaffer Sah, who took care of the Pasha's grave, is the person who has helped the most to end the Pasha's 74-year long separation from his home country.

Muzaffer Sah's links to Enver Pasha go back to his father, Talip Sah, who took care of financial matters at Enver Pasha's headquarters. After removing the Pasha's dead body so that it would not be desecrated by the Russians, Talip Pasha built a secret grave for him not only on Cegan Hill, but also on the spot where the Pasha's blood had collected in a ditch. Talip Sah considered it a sacred duty for himself and his family to protect the grave of Enver Pasha, whom he called 'my commander' and accompanied until his last breath. Muzaffer Sah, who is leading a very harsh life in Tajikistan which is currently suffering from political and economic crises, wrote in his letter: "We greet the daughter of Enver Pasha. We have taken good care of your father for 75 years. We hope you will help us." Osman Mayatepek, the grandson of the Pasha, could not hold back his tears upon reading the letter. "The Pasha's family will not let such an example of loyalty go unrewarded," he said.

[Peter H]

An interesting link on the Israeli PM Moshe Sharett (1894 - 1965) who served in the Ottoman Army in WW1:

http://www.pmo.gov.il/PMOEng/Government ... Sharet.htm

...during the war several thousand Jewish residents of Palestine were inducted into the Turkish army; a few of them were trained and appointed as officers and NCOs in the Turkish army. Examples are Moshe Sharett, Dov Hoz (who later deserted to the British army), Alexander Aaronson, and Elimelekh Zelikovich (Avner); the latter eventually became a senior commander in the Haganah.

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/Moder ... e%20Forces

[Tosun Saral]

Peter,

I suspected a mix up of identities. Those Turkish names can be very tricky and beside the spelling (Ahmet or Ahmed) you find them with different titles Bey or Pasha (I did new about Pasa) and then their names is normally written without first names. So it is difficult to know when you got the right person.

So I would agree with you and Erickson. However this leaves me with a small question wasn’t it then Khalil Pasha rather than Halil Pasha that were Enver Pasha’s uncle? I have seen your picture of Khalil describe as his uncle (It would also make a bit more sense otherwise Enver and his uncle would be of same age).

Kind Regards
Steen Ammentorp
The Generals of World War II

(Ahmet or Ahmed) = Araps dont use the letter "t" they prefer to write "d"( e.g: Davud, Mahmud, Muhammed) "t" is Turkish letter. We write "Davut, Mahmut, Muhammet". Arab letters was not good enough to write Turkish words. for that reason it was written "Khalil", "Jhavid"(in Turkish Cavit), Now with latin letters we write "Halil"). Before 1928 we used arabic letters for that reason in old pages it is written Ahmed.

Pasha/Pasa/Pascha= those are foreign words used for Turkish "Paşa". In latin letters there are no letters such as : ç,ş, ö, ü, Pascha is the way the Germans say. Pasha or Pasa is the way the British say.
Paşa which means "general" is a very old Turkish commanding officers tittle. Paşa come from "ağa" Ağa means "older brother" The original word of Paşa was "Başağa" which means "chief ağa" a higher tittle then Ağa. Later " pronouncing Baschaga became "paşa"
Turkish officers tittles:
Efendi: Lt, 2nd Lt. Capt.
Bey: Major, Lt. Col. Col.
Paşa: All generals