The Captive Letters From Malta

Abstract

After sıgning of the treaties ending the First World War by the Ottoman Government, th English who occupied the Capital, İstanbul, captivated and sent tens of officers, civilian bureaucrats, and patriots to exile, with the help of their new native collaborators under the pretext of purported offenses. There were officers and soldiers among the captives in Malta let alone some remarkable personages. This article focuses on the letters of Ali İhsan Sabis, Mustafa Reşat, officers, and the leters of the soldiers hed in captivity by the English in Malta. Ali İhsan Pasha who was taken under detention in İstanbul on March 2, 1919, begins his days of captivity and exile in Malta by March 29, 1919. Toward the end of the year he writes a letter to Süreyya Bey, an officer at the commissariat, and asks him to inform the new Minister of Defense, Cemal Pasha from Mersin, on rescuing the Turkİsh captives in Malta as soon as possible. The second letter belongs to Mustafa Reşat Bey, the director of political affairs at the İstanbul poliçe of the day. Mustafa Reşat Bey asks Cavİt Bey, the former Minister of Finance, and begs Cahit Bey to rescue him from thİs "tomb". There are also officers who were convicted of "abusing the English prison- ers" among the prisoners in Malta. They wrote letters to the Ministry of Defense and said that they were captivated unjustly; their previous applications to the authorities were not answered, they complained that although they were prisoners of war the English were abusing them, their families and children were destined to die of hunger, no one was asking after the Turkish officers captivated in Malta, and that they were in deep sorrow as they felt forgotten. As for the other letters taking place in the article; one is written to the moth- er of one of the Turkish soldiers, and other is addressed to the publisher of the ikdam newspaper. The common point in the letters mentioned are the anger and the feeling of contempt for the purported offenses, and against the abuse of captives emloyed by the occupying forces blind logic.