The poor wretch was emaciated to a skeleton

TCD MS 3416 page 44

TCD MS 3416 page 44

[June 1916]

no boots and had received practically no food save just what he had picked up on the ground near the camps, and had been given by Turkish soldiers: the poor wretch was emaciated to a skeleton & nearly out of his mind and had lost his memory, for the could not remember the name of his regiment, the names of his officers, or where he was captured. This case was one of many hundreds, and many of the soldiers concerned had not survived the treatment.

Major Baines on arrival at Islahie later says – “I found here 90 British soldiers in a camp near the station under a single fly black tent – much overcrowded, of these 20 were dangerously ill and emaciated to skeletons being unable to eat the bread ration supplied to them; they were receiving no medical assistance from the Turks and were in fact inhumanely treated. On intelligence received from Captain Shakeshaft from a German subordinate here, who was indignant of the gross neglect of these men by the Turks, some of the men were literally dying from starvation, and nearly all were suffering from dysentry and fever. They were the castaways of a convoy of prisoners on it’s way up country and had been dropped here as be