Ottoman Soldiers in the Hospitals of the Krakow’s Fortified Zone Between 1916-1919 (In the Light of Polish Sources)

Abstract

In 1916-1919 in the then hospitals of the Krakow Fortified Zone were quartered at least 50 Ottoman soldiers. Most of them, i.e. 47, were the officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers of the XV Corps - the unit which in 1916-1917 fought within the German Southern Army on the Eastern Galician Front. The remaining three soldiers served in the units deployed on the Caucasian Front between 1914 and 1918 and most probably came to Krakow in 1919 on their way back home from Russian captivity. The personal details and addresses of the above-mentioned soldiers can be found in two separately created archival sources: The first of them is a notebook written in October 1917 by the founder of the Krakow Turkish Studies Department Prof. Tadeusz Kowalski. This source was titled "Materiały dialektologiczne tureckie, przewa˙znie niewydane" [Mostly unpublished materials on Turkish dialectology] and can be found in the Scientific Archive of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Polish Academy of Learning in Krakow. The second one are the "certificates of postmortem examination" preserved in the Administrative Archive of the Krakow Municipal Cemeteries. As a result of research work conducted upon the above mentioned sources, two lists of military personnel have been drawn up and published within this article. Besides the soldiers' personal details and addresses, the article contains some songs about the Galician Front (never published before) and information on the Ottoman soldiers' burials in Krakow.