Ottoman Prisoners of War in France (1915-1918)

The First World War had many devastating effects on world history. One of the countries affected politically, socially and economically in this four-year war was the Ottoman Empire. In addition to the material and moral losses experienced by the state, there were also soldiers who were injured, fell ill and lost their lives in the war. Some of them were sentenced to captivity, one of the inevitable consequences of the war. In addition to the soldiers captured by the French, many civilians and non- Muslim Ottoman citizens were also captured and kept in various camps. The focus of this study is the experiences of civilian-military Ottoman citizens captured by the French after their capture, their lives in prison camps, the condition of the camps where they were held, their working conditions while in captivity, and their psychological and sociological situations. In this study, in addition to primary sources such as the Red Crescent Archive and State Archives, the impressions of the situation of Ottoman citizens taken captive by the French in the camps where they were held and how the captivity processes were followed in line with the findings obtained from copyright and audit works constituted the limitation of the study. In the reports of the Red Cross Delegation, the situation of the prisoners was described in a more optimistic way, while the situation was described in the prisoner's letters in the opposite way. The prisoners reported the situation they were in, the issues they complained about to their families and the state, to which they sent letters through Hilal-i Ahmer. The contradictory situation between the report of the Red Cross Delegation and the prisoner's letters has been tried to be conveyed in an objective way. Dec.