AI Summary & Key Takeaways
AI InsightAnimals were key players in the conflict, but they suffered greatly, lacking even basic equipment like horseshoes and saddles, and perished from exhaustion, mistreatment, starvation, and disease.
📌 3 Key Takeaways
Abstract
This article examines the severe deprivation and suffering endured by animals serving in the Ottoman army during the First World War. It treats war as a process of intense militarization of environmental and biological resources, focusing on the working animals such as horses, mules. They constituted the primary driving force of the Ottoman army. Due to the lack of a developed railway network and its exposure to an Allied naval blockade, the mobility, supply, and logistics of its armies relied heavily on animal energy. Within this framework, this article studies all stages of these animals' wartime experiences: their conscription and confiscation, shortages of fodder and provisions, inadequate veterinary services, lack of medicine and equipment, poor housing conditions, and the infectious diseases. All of them caused an awful tragedy during the war. The main aim of this article is to make visible the experience and misery of animals in war, which has largely been overshadowed by a human-centered military historiography. Instead of treating animals as passive objects or merely instruments of war, the study aims to place them among the primary actors in war and to demonstrate that their suffering can be traced, at least in part, through surviving archival records. Thus, it aims to reveal a neglected dimension of the Ottoman war effort. The significance of this study lies in its contribution to academic research on the environmental and animal history of war. By including the Ottoman example in this discussion, the article fills a significant gap and demonstrates how frameworks of environmental history and animal agency can be applied to a non-Western war setting. This study stress that the ecological and biological dimensions of the Ottoman war experience, and particularly the mobilization of animal labor, deserve a more comprehensive historical examination. In terms of the resources used in this study, the study relies on primary sources obtained from the Ottoman State Archives (BOA) and the Turkish General Staff Archives (ATASE), as official books about the war. Aforementioned resources engage with the work of scholars such as Edmund Russell, Chris Pearson, Alan Mikhail, Mehmet Beşikçi, and Mesut Uyar by reading these documents from the perspectives of environmental history, animal agency, and Actor-Network Theory. Petitions and official correspondence are used to show how state records can partially make audible the otherwise silent experiences of animals. The findings of this study shed light on the extent and depth of the animal loss. In 1914, the army had 218,837 animals; with confiscated and seized animals, this number rose to 425,903, and by the Armistice of Mudros, fewer than 100,000 animals remained. For comparison, Britain had mobilized approximately 368,000 horses by August 1917, Germany 715,000, and France 700,000. The most serious problem was the shortage of feed and provisions: the animals were not receiving the calories they needed, and although a Feed Regulation (Feed Instructions) was issued, fodder was often not delivered on time, and when it did arrive, it was usually in the form of bran or in a dry, salty state that caused digestive problems. The drought of 1916 further exacerbated the fodder shortage, forcing peasants to sell their animals cheaply to traders and contractors. War confiscations (Tekâlif-i Harbiye) seized fodder from the rural population. On the Suez Canal and Sinai fronts, the number of animals was minimized to conserve water and fodder. Animals like camels were used for both carrying loads and water, and animals on the verge of starvation were sometimes slaughtered for their meat. In some places, animals were forced to eat tree leaves, vetch roots, and date seeds. Another problem was the shortage of veterinarians. At the beginning of the war, army had only about 328 veterinarians, and despite the mobilization of retired and civilian veterinarians and veterinary school students. Animal hospitals behind the front lines could become breeding grounds for new diseases. The procurement of animals of unsuitable breeds and physical condition, a lack of medicine and equipment, inadequate housing conditions, and infectious diseases such as cattle plague and scabies further increased the mortality rate. After the war, owners whose animals were confiscated submitted petitions to receive their unpaid compensation. The study concludes that even in a war involving tanks, aircraft, and poison gas, the Ottoman army remained heavily reliant on animal energy due to logistical weaknesses. Animals were key players in the conflict, but they suffered greatly, lacking even basic equipment like horseshoes and saddles, and perished from exhaustion, mistreatment, starvation, and disease.
Özet
Bu çalışma Birinci Dünya Savaşı’nda Osmanlı ordusu hizmetinde bulunan hayvanların sefaletini ele almaktadır. Bu savaş ekonomik ve toplumsal kaynakları seferber ettiği kadar çevresel ve hayvansal kaynakları da yoğun biçimde militarize etmiştir. Osmanlı’nın savaş dönemindeki ulaşım ağının yetersizliği ve İtilaf Devletleri’nin denizlerde icra ettiği ağır abluka yüzünden at, katır ve deve gibi hayvanların enerjisi ulaşım belkemiği haline geldi. Bu çalışmanın amacı savaş döneminde bu hayvanların çekmiş olduğu sefaleti görünür kılmak ve aynı zamanda savaş anlatısının bir parçası haline getirmektir. Topyekûn savaş olarak bilinen Birinci Dünya Savaşı sadece cephedeki veya cephe gerisindeki insanlar için maddi manevi sefalet getirmedi, aynı zamanda Osmanlı ordusunun aslî unsurlarından olan at, katır, manda gibi hayvanlar için de ağır bir yıkım getirdi. İnsan merkezli Birinci Dünya Savaşı anlatısının esasında eksik olduğu görülecektir. Bu çalışma hayvanların ordu hizmetine alındıktan sonra maruz kaldıkları ağır koşulları çok yönlü biçimde ortaya koymaktadır. 1914’te Osmanlı ordusunun hizmetinde bulunan hayvan sayısı 200 binden biraz fazla iken savaşla birlikte bu sayı 400 binin üzerine çıkmıştır. Bu artışın ana sebebi Hayvan Mübayaa Komisyonları ile Tekalif-i Harbiye Komisyonlarının tedarik ettiği hayvanlar idi. Ayrıca çok az da olsa ganimet olarak alınan hayvanlar da bu artışın sebeplerinden biri olarak addedilebilir. Bu hayvanlar savaş boyunca bulaşıcı hastalıklar, kötü barınma koşulları, haddinden fazla yük taşıma ve çalıştırılma gibi kronik problemler ile karşı karşıya kalmışlardır. Bu problemlerin incelenmesi onların yaşadığı trajedinin ortaya çıkarılması anlamına gelmektedir. Cumhuriyet Türkiye’si Birinci Dünya Savaşı’nda yaşanan hayvan zayiatının yarattığı tahribattan da ciddi şekilde etkilenmiştir. Bu çalışma ağırlıklı Genelkurmay Başkanlığı tarafından çıkarılan olarak resmi tarih kitapları ile savaş dönemindeki arşiv belgelerine dayanmaktadır. Bu çalışma Birinci Dünya savaşının tarih yazımında her ne kadar geri planda kalmış olsa da Osmanlı askerleri kadar hayvanların da büyük bir trajedi yaşadığını ortaya koyacaktır.