CHARITY AND MOBILIZATION IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR: 1917 EXHIBITION OF THE OTTOMAN RED CRESCENT SOCIETY IN GALATASARAY HIGH SCHOOL

Abstract

The Red Crescent Society was effective in civil life as well as the Society for the Ottoman Navy, and the Society for National Defense. The exhibition that the Ottoman Red Crescent Society organized in Galatasaray High School in February 1917 during the First World War was an important event in terms of how civil life on the home front was mobilized by such societies. During the preparation phase, Besim Ömer Pasha labored over, and the leading members of the Union and Progress like İsmail Canbulat had a great contribution to its preparation. Not only the Ottoman Red Crescent Society, but also German and Austrian Red Crosses were involved in the exhibition. While displaying the efficacy and development of the society, this exhibition conveyed the medical dimension of the intuitional war experience, and even visually configured version of the war experience, to 200,000 visitors. The objects displayed in the exhibition were medical equipment, devices for healing, some photographs capturing medical services of the society. Nevertheless, the objects in this exhibition featured a sterilized reality that did not include the tragedy and destruction brought about by the war.