The 15th Corps of the Imperial Ottoman Army on the Eastern Galician Front (1916-1917)

Abstract

The article starts with some essential information related to the circumstances of the decision to send the Ottoman 15th Corps to the Eastern Galician front as well as to the preparations before the redeployment and the journey up to the frontline. Then a relatively detailed account of fights is given. The author draws attention to the heavy losses suffered by the Ottoman troops within the first few weeks of their fights in Galicia and stresses that the first commander of the 15th Corps Colonel Yakup Şevki beard the full responsibility for this situation. While summing up the one-year long period of the Ottoman presence on this European front the author points out that it was, and still can be perceived by the Polish nation as a symbolic fulfillment of the words said by the 18th century Ukrainian prophet Wernyhora (Poland would be reborn when Turkish horse drink in the Vistula River). The author gives some information on the establishment of the Turkish Studies Department at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland in 1919 too, which was a direct result of contacts of the Polish orientalist prof. Tadeusz Kowalski with the wounded Ottoman soldiers. The article ends with some facts on the burials of the 15th Corps soldiers in Krakow.