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Ottoman Muslim casualties of Middle Eastern theatre of World War I cover wartime casualties of the Muslim Millet of the Ottoman Empire. Considering that the figures for the largely rural and Turkish mass of Anatolia was observed to have dropped to 40% of the pre-war levels in the first general census held in 1927,, Ottoman Empire's casualties can be certified to have been enormous regardless of the method used in the calculations. After the war, the Ottoman Empire had lost its territories in the Middle East, which makes the estimation of the total civilian casualties harder as the timeline approaches 1918.

The records regarding the Muslim civilians were sealed at the time of the Paris Peace Conference, and there is very little literature review on the Muslim millet, compared to Christian millet of the Empire (see: Armenian casualties). If we look without breakdowns, the total Ottoman losses run almost as high as 25% of the population - approximately 5 million out of population of 21 million. To be more exact, the 1914 census gave 20,975,345 as the population size, which 15,044,846 was Muslim millet, 187,073 Jew millet, 186,152 do not belong to any and the rest of the size is shared by other millets. Among the 5 million, we know that 771,844 is military casualties which killed in action and other causes The military only covers 15% of the total casualties. The main question is what happened to 85% (all millets) of the casualties, which is more but not less then 4,000,000. Ottoman statistics analyzed by Turkish Kamer Kasim (Manchester University, Ph.D.), claims that cumulative percentage was 26.9% (higher than 25% reported by western sources) of the population, which this size stands out among the countries that took part in the World War I. To understand the size of the issue, Kamer Kasım's %1.9 increase on the totals would add 399,000 civilians to the total number, which has not been reported in western sources.

One plausible explanation that needs further study may be attributable to the productivity patterns of the Muslim millet which could have dropped beyond sustainable levels since most of the men were under arms.

"Ottoman Muslim" - The Millet perspective

Ottoman Empire was not a nation state. Its subjects were not grouped as based on ethnicity, but rather on the Ottoman concept of "Millet", although it had evolved in time. Millet idea categorized subjects as based on their religious affiliations, independent of ethnic background. As such, there were three main groups in the Empire, namely the Muslims, the Christians and the Jews. Most census figures and statistics from the Ottoman era reflect this approach, and as such, it remains nearly impossible to determine the exact number of people belonging to a specific ethnicity in a given census. Therefore, "Ottoman Muslim" casualty numbers for the First World War include Turks, Arabs, Kurds, Albanians and others Muslim peoples of the Empire. But the majority in the Ottoman Muslim Millet were Turkish speakers.

H. G. Dwight, the author of the travellers guide book "Constantinople settings and traits", published in 1926, relates his experience of witnessing an Ottoman Military burial in Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) and took pictures of it. The soldiers were from every nation, but they were only distinguished by their religion, in groups of "Mohammedans" and "Christians". The sermons were performed as based on the count of Bibles, Korans, and Tanakhs in provenance of the battlefield. This is what the caption of one slide reads (on the right):

One officer was left, who made to the grave-diggers and spectators a speech of a moving simplicity. "Brothers," he said, "here are men of every nation - Turks, Albanians, Greeks, Bulgarians, Jews; but they died together, on the same day, fighting under the same flag. Among us, too, are men of every nation, both Mohammedan and Christian; but we also have one flag and we pray to one God. Now, I am going to make a prayer, and when I pray let each one of you pray also, in his own language, in his own way.

Civilian Casualties

After the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, for reliability reasons, the data regarding the Muslim casualties had to be collected by region.

Anatolia

Turkish peasantry of Anatolia had dropped to 40% of the pre-war levels.

Refugees

It was not a novelty in world history to see from time to time people forced to move from one region to another, be it in the form of refugees, of population transfer or of search for political asylum, but the World War I and its aftermath caused migrations at unprecedently large scales. The Anatolian refugees included people who had migrated from war zones and immediate vicinity attempting, by doing so, to escape persecution. For the WWI, the relatively most reliable sources can be found for Anatolia, especially in relation to the Caucasus Campaign.

There is a total number reached and reported by the Ottoman Empire at the end of 1916. On the basis of previous Ottoman census, the Turkish historian Kamer Kasim (Manchester University, Ph.D.), arrives at the conclusion that the movements of refugees from the Caucasus war zone had reached 1.500.000 people who were relocated in the Mediterranean region and Central Anatolia under very difficult conditions. Kamer Kasım's number or any other number on this issue has not been reported in western sources.

A large wave of immigration of Azerbaijani people started just before the end of the World War I and lasted until 1920, during the Armenian-Azerbaijani war (1918 - 1920), when many Muslim residents of then newly independent Democratic Republic of Armenia had to flee to Turkish-controlled lands, escaping massacres .

Epidemics

The homeless masses, lacking food, clothing, and medicine had to endure many depredations. Many who could survive the exposure to war conditions and famine, succumbed to the diseases ravaging at the time (see: Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918). When compared to other millets (christian and Jews) Muslim millet did not get specifically aimed western support (eg: missionary hospitals), which made the conditions harder for this section of the population.

Syria

The most horrible cases originate from the current region of Syria, a part of Ottoman Empire until the end of the war. The civilian casualties of Syria was covered in a detailed article (the whole of Greater Syria, and thus including Akkar) by Linda Schatkowski Schilcher. Contributing to as many as 500,000 deaths of the civilians living in this region (not: Syria was established in 1936) in the 1915-1917 period, study lists eight basic factors: (a) “The Entente powers’ total blockage of the Syrian coast; (b) the inadequacy of the Ottoman supply strategy; deficient harvest and inclement weather; (c) diversion of supplies from Syria as a consequence of the Arab revolt; (d) the speculative frenzy of a number of unscrupulous local grain merchants; the callousness of German military official in Syria, and systematic hoarding by the population at large.

Military casualties

The conditions on the whole in the Ottoman army were almost bad beyond description. Soldiers, even at the front and who received the best care in comparative terms, were often (a) undernourished, (b) underclothed; troops deployed at high altitude in the mountains of Eastern Anatolia often had only summer clothes; Ottoman soldiers in Palestine often took great risks just to rob the British dead of their boots and even clothing; and (c) largely suffering from diseases (primarily cholera and typhus) which took many more lives than the actual fighting . The German general Kress, in a report he wrote to army group headquarters on 20 October 1917, describes how a division (the 24th) which had departed from Istanbul-Haydarpaşa Terminal with 10,057 men had arrived at the Palestinian Front with only 4,635. 19% of the men had to be admitted to hospitals since they were suffering from various diseases, 24% had deserted and 8% were allocated on the way to various local needs.

Until the World War I, Istanbul's civilian Muslim population and non-Muslim millets (minorities for some sources) were exempt from the conscription Making exception of the indirect effects of often perennial arrangements such as those which existed for the labor force of the arsenal and the dockyards. Full conscription was applied in İstanbul for the first time during the World War I, and a lasting phraseology describes the Dardanelles Campaign as Turkey having "buried a university in Çanakkale". Non-muslim Millets (minorities for some sources) were also issued a general call to serve in the military for the first time during WWI in the history of the Empire; but they did not participate in action and served behind the lines. At the end of the war, many families were left with the elderly, children and young widows, see the figure widowhood in Anatolia. Given that the Ottoman Empire was engaged in nearly eight years of continuous warfare (1911-1918 Italo-Turkish War, Balkan Wars, World War One) social disintegration was inevitable.

Gallipoli Campaign

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Caucasus Campaign

The losses of wounded soldiers (those who died off the battlefield, and therefore were not considered KIA) of the same Third Imperial Army, assigned to the Caucasus Campaign, are put at 41,400 for the period between 1914-18.

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Middle East

During the successive campaigns of the Middle-Eastern war theatre, particularly in Hijaz, Syria and Mesopotamia, the Ottoman side suffered about 325,000 casualties.

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Epidemics

When the war was declared in Europe in 1914, there was only one military hospital in Van, Turkey, which was soon overcrowded with wounded and sick The conditions were extremely bad; There were only two surgeons and no nurses, only male soldiers helping. The losses of the Third Army, assigned to the Caucasus Campaign, reached 116,000 during the duration of hostilities, from 1914 until 1918 . This number seems to correspond to the estimations of nl:Erik-Jan Zürcherduring the same time that also reported that Germany's medical infrastructure was more than five times better than the Ottoman Empire's.

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Totals

The total number of soldiers who died in hospitals from epidemics were reported to be around 466,759. However, the number of soldiers who perished because of epidemics outside medical establishments is hard to calculate since some of the soldiers were listed as simply "missing".

The military records of the era are open to the public in the Ottoman Archives. These show somewhat different figures than Western European sources. These are the statistics recorded in the Ottoman military archives:

See also

• World War I casualties

Notes

1. Erik Jan ZÜRCHER, Between death and desertion. The experience of the ottoman soldier in World War I p.241
2. James L.Gelvin "The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War " Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN-13: 978-0521618045 Page 77
3. Stanford Jay Shaw, Ezel Kural Shaw "History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey" Cambridge University page 239-241
4. Ordered to Die: A History of the Ottoman Army in the First World War By Huseyin (FRW) Kivrikoglu, Edward J. Erickson Page 211.
5. Kamer Kasim, Ermeni Arastirmalari, Sayı 16-17, 2005, page 205.
6. WEBSTER, DONALD EVERETT (1935) "The Turkey of Ataturk" Philadelphia.
7. Zurcher, 'Between Death and Desertion"
8. S.C Josh (1999), “Sociology of Migration and Kinship” Anmol Publications PVT. LTD. p 55
9. Kamer Kasim, Ermeni Arastirmalari, Sayı 16-17, 2005, page 205.
10. The Destruction of Ottoman Erzurum by Justin McCarthy. Retrieved 26 August, 2006
11. “The famine of 1915-1918 in greater Syria,” in John Spangnolo, ed., Problems of the Modern Middle East in Historical Perspectives (Reading, 1992), p.234-254.
12. “The famine of 1915-1918 in greater Syria,” in John Spangnolo, ed., Problems of the Modern Middle East in Historical Perspectives (Reading, 1992), p.234-254.
13. Erik Jan Zürcher, "The Ottoman conscription system in theory and practice, 1844-1918", in: Erik Jan Zürcher (ed.), Arming the State: Military Conscription in the Middle East and Central Asia, London: I.B. Tauris, 1999, 88.
14. Hans Kannengiesser, The campaign in gallipoli, London Hutchinson, 1927, p.266
15. Erik Jan ZÜRCHER, Between death and desertion. The experience of the ottoman soldier in World War I p.241
16. Nur Bilge CRISS, "Istanbul under Allied Occupation 1918–1923", 1999 Brill Academic Publishers, ISBN 9004112596 p22
17. Nur Bilge CRISS, "Istanbul under Allied Occupation 1918–1923", 1999 Brill Academic Publishers, ISBN 9004112596 p22
18. Nur Bilge CRISS, "Istanbul under Allied Occupation 1918–1923", 1999 Brill Academic Publishers, ISBN 9004112596 p21
19. Grace H Knapp, The mission at Van;: In Turkey in war time, 1915, p 41-42
20. Grace H Knapp, The mission at Van;: In Turkey in war time, 1915, p 42-43
21. Ordered to Die: A History of the Ottoman Army in the First World War By Huseyin (FRW) Kivrikoglu, Edward J. Erickson Page 211.

• Articles with unsourced statements from December 2006
• World War I
• Aftermath of World War I
• War casualties
• History of the Ottoman Empire
• Demographics of the Ottoman Empire