Burial Along the Front

Mehmet lie on a cruel sheet of cold white as the last glimmers of light slowly faded from the sky. The receding sun left just enough light for Mehmet to look towards the ragged patchwork of ripped fabric that clung barely to his feet and watch as the bright red skin gradually turned blue.

Mehmet had not expected to fall when he did. His legs had gone numb hours ago, weakened by the trudge through sometimes waist-high snow on the mountain pass. He had eaten nothing but dried bread since leaving camp days ago, but his resolve carried him until it could no longer.

It wasn’t until after Mehmet lost his balance, and the voices of the commanding officers faded away entirely, that he realized the extent of the catastrophe. Surrounding Mehmet were the men who once comprised the rest of the X Corps of the Ottoman Army. The ones who were still alive would likely be gone within the hour. The rest lie strewn about the mountain trail, draped in rags that once passed for uniforms, with looks of pain and horror frozen upon the faces that were still visible above the wickedly rising snow. Like Mehmet, their unshaken belief in an Ottoman victory alone simply could not scale the mountain range in the dead of winter.

The Allahuekber Mountains, though still a part of the Anatolian homeland, were wholly unfamiliar to anything Mehmet had ever seen in his native Izmir. A subzero temperature of any kind would have shut the bustling Mediterranean port city down for the night. Forty below, though, would simply be death.

Sarikamish, the railway town that lie on the other side of the mountain, was a full day’s march away when the Corps set out in the wee hours of the morning. The snow struck almost immediately. The conscripted men knew nothing of its arrival until it ambushed them, coating their already dangerous path in a knee-high muck. Then waist-high. Then nearly impassable.

“Continue marching,” echoed the increasingly distant voices of the officers ahead. “Continue the march at all costs. We are depending on you.”

Mehmet had known that the officers and commanders had wrapped themselves in oilcloth to keep warmer than the men they led. They had their tents, their horses, and clothing that maintained its integrity despite the conditions. Yet, Mehmet tried, against his better judgment, to maintain his trust in them. They were worldly men, educated men, trained in arts that Mehmet could only ever hope to understand. Enver Pasha had assured the cold, hungry, and exhausted soldiers that an ambush upon Sarikamish from the mountain would catch the Russians off guard, and that the swift recapture of the town would assert Ottoman dominance over the homeland. The hope in the operation was all Mehmet had left, even as the operation started to break down.

Enver Pasha. The name reverberated throughout every camp, barracks, and outpost with a might. His word was final, and not even the Sultan could stop him anymore. The intrepid Minister of War had learned from the Germans, and he had convinced the whole nation that the resulting reforms would lead the Empire not only to victory in this war, but to a new era of dominance in the twentieth century.

It was Enver Pasha’s idea to direct the soldiers through the mountains toward the Russians. The maneuver was based on his refined European military knowledge, he had assured the soldiers, just like their new organization and insignia. It was Enver Pasha and his lieutenants, his chiefs of staff, and his entourage who had packed only meager rations for 100,000 men marching through the wilderness, and before Mehmet lost sight of the officers, it was Enver Pasha who insisted that he would still throw the diminished, starving, and frostbitten remainder of his soldiers into the Russian defenses. And he would continue to do so, the lower commanders believed, until either the town was in Ottoman hands or no one remained.

Though his limbs failed him, Mehmet was still able to crane his neck slightly to look out upon the carnage that remained of the X Corps. The tears in the modernized uniforms exposed the blood blisters and spots of blue, bright red, and occasionally ink black that dotted the skin of his comrades. German-made rifles littered the snow, some of them with dead fingers still wrapped around them. Limbs were bent into impossible positions, and eyes were frozen wide open. Mehmet knew he would be among them soon. He wondered if anyone would bother to come back to retrieve the bodies.

Mehmet fixed his gaze to his own breath as it billowed up and dissipated into the villainous air. He had done what was asked of him. He regretted that it had taken him this long, until he lie in a graveyard of the destroyed bodies of young men who had been duped just like he had, to fully recognize the extent of the deception.

To think that he had felt a pang of excitement when he had heard that the conscription age had been lowered to 18 several months prior. There was a twisted humor in it, he thought. To die on a battlefield where there had been no battle. To die to recapture a town that had not been an Ottoman possession during his lifetime. To die for a cause that was never really his own, in a plan orchestrated by men who never even knew his name.

Honor. Duty. A higher obligation. To be a defender of the faith, another Mehmetçik answering the Sultan’s call to protect the sunnah, the ummah, and the homeland from the enemy hordes who would see it crushed beneath European boots.

It was a fairy tale. It had been a fantasy all along.

Mehmet thought about Hassan, another young conscript from his division, who had regaled him every night at camp with stories about the great battles in their nation’s history. Kosovo, Constantinople, Marj Dabiq, Mohács, Chaldiran. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of the names of the Sultans and commanders who had led their forces to victory and the Empire to glory. He hated to admit it now, but the historical tales had helped Mehmet get through the long marches, poor rations, and miserable training on particularly hard days. The thought that he could become a part of the rich tradition of valiant conquerors and bring the Empire back from the brink of destruction motivated him, despite the reality of his conditions.

Even after the early victory over the small detachment of Russian soldiers two days before, Mehmet struggled to square his fantastical understanding of battle with its reality. They didn’t fall the way he expected. There was no dramatic final war cry, no dropping to the knees, no heroic last stands. The ones that were shot just folded over at the waist, mid-step, and fell to the ground, just to be carted to a mass grave later. Even among the survivors, there was something about the look on their faces that bothered Mehmet. The men who were taken prisoner weren’t the heathenous, murderous barbarians hellbent on destruction that the posters had depicted. They looked like stunned, horrified boys who just wanted to run home.

Even as he tried to maintain his faith in the plans of his superiors, Mehmet still thought of the way the Russian boys’ hands shook as they were led away from the battlefield when his own hands started to tremble in the cold on the mountain pass.

That was many hours ago. There was no movement at all now atop the mountain. Mehmet’s breathing continued to slow. No great Sultan or general would come to pick up the ruined pieces of this battle. There had not been a great plan that the common soldier couldn’t understand. There was no plan at all. This was an unmitigated disaster that Mehmet and his friends had entered with excitement.

The era of the “grand moments,” like when Mehmet’s namesake entered the city of Constantinople for the first time in 1453, was long over, if it had ever really existed in the first place. No triumph, no glory, no homeland defended, not even a thank you from his superiors. Enver Pasha was probably well over the mountain by now, planning with his close guard how he would send whatever few men remained into another doomed effort designed to save his own reputation.

Any remaining semblance of feeling had left Mehmet’s body, leaving only numb acceptance. His breathing continued to slow until it became evident that it would soon stop entirely. He tried to think of Izmir, but he couldn’t anymore. His neck was frozen now too, and his eyes were locked in place towards the cold void of the sky above.

It was so terribly cold. Snow was falling, and it was almost dark.