Pursuit of an 'Unparalleled Opportunity'
Key Figures

Statesmen

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Mehmet Talaat Pasha (1874-1921)

A Turkish statesman, Talaat was first arrested for subversive activity against the Ottoman government in 1893. He became a leading member of the Young Turks and participated actively in the Revolution of 1908. Talaat received an appointment to serve as a deputy for Edirne in the Turkish Parliament. In 1909, Talaat joined the national cabinet as the Minister of the Interior and later as the Minister of Post. He expanded his power within the party when he was elected Secretary General of the Committee of Union and Progress in 1912. Unlike most of the Young Turk leaders, Talaat supported working with the British and French before World War I. When the Entente Powers rejected his overtures, he sided with Enver Pasha in establishing an alliance with Germany. Talaat did not support Turkey's entry into the war in November 1914 because he viewed the conflict as a major gamble which would not come out favorably for the empire. As the Minister of the Interior, Talaat was responsible for subordinating the Ottoman population to support the war effort. His office oversaw the deportation of the Armenians from the eastern provinces to Syria and Mesopotamia starting in April 1915, after the rebel's capture of Van. Ottoman officials feared a general Armenian uprising which would support the Russian offensive from the Caucasus. As a result of this forced migration, over 600,000 Armenians died during the "Atrocities." This program was the first example of genocide in the 20th century. Talaat denied knowledge or involvement in the implementation of this policy. In February 1917, Talaat became the Grand Vizier and held this post until his resignation in October 1918, prior to the signing of the Turkish Armistice. Talaat fled with Enver Pasha and Djemal Pasha on board a German ship to Germany. He was assassinated in Berlin in April 1921 in an act of revenge by an Armenian.

Graf Taube

A count and Swedish Ambassador to Germany during World War I, Graf Taube looked after the interests of several Allied countries. In April 1916, Taube became an honorary member of the German YMCA War Prisoners' Aid Committee, established by Archibald C. Harte in Berlin. This organization oversaw WPA operations in the German Empire and became a model for WPA relief services in other countries.

Carl Taylor

A lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, Taylor commanded a special commission of fifty American Red Cross personnel who arrived in Berlin in February 1919 to provide medical assistance to the 400,000 Russian prisoners of war still incarcerated in Germany. With the collapse of the imperial government, conditions in the prison camps deteriorated quickly. The Red Cross workers conducted inspections of seventy-five prison camps which housed Russian prisoners and developed an inventory of food supplies, clothing and equipment needs, sanitary arrangements, and recreation opportunities. The American Red Cross gained access to the supplies originally earmarked for American, British, and French POW's in Germany, but who had long since departed. Once the food supply system at the prison camps was reestablished, the Red Cross provided clothing, medical and hospital supplies, and special food for sick Russian prisoners.

Charles V. F. Townshend (1861-1924)

A British major general, Townshend served in the Sudan Expedition of 1884 to 1885. He distinguished himself by holding the Chitral fort in India in 1895 and he fought in the Boer War. By 1911, he had risen to the rank of major general. With the Turkish entry into the Great War in November 1914, the British High Command assigned Townshend to command British forces in Kuwait. Launching an offensive from Basra, Townshend led a British expedition up the Tigris River in Mesopotamia and drove the Turks out of Al Qurna in December 1914. He continued the advance northward, seizing Amara in June and Kut-al-Amara in September 1915. Townshend had almost reached Baghdad when the British encountered a superior Turkish force at Ctesiphon in November. Checked by the Turks, Townshend ordered a retreat to Kut-al-Amara, reaching the city by December 1915. The Turks enveloped the city and defeated British attempts to raise the siege. At the end of April 1916, the surviving British and Indian forces in Kut surrendered. The capitulation was a major British defeat, which buoyed the spirit of the Turkish Army. The Turks forced the Anglo-Indian prisoners of war to march across the desert without adequate food, water, shelter, or medical attention and large numbers of POW's died under terrible conditions before reaching prison camps in Anatolia. Townshend became an honored prisoner of war in Constantinople and the Turkish government negotiated through Townshend in October 1918 to accept the Allied armistice terms.

Field Marshal Lieutenant Urban

An Austrian general, Field Marshal Lieutenant Urban supervised prisoner of war operations for the Austro-Hungarian Ministry of War during World War I. In May 1915, Archibald Harte visited Vienna to seek Association access to Dual Monarchy prison camps to establish War Prisoners' Aid operations. Flushed with success in Germany, Harte found a ready audience in Vienna. Urban informed U.S. Ambassador Frederic Penfield that the Ministry of War approved Harte's proposal to allow American YMCA secretaries to begin WPA service on the condition that similar operations be established for Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war in Russia and Serbia. Utilizing the Principle of Reciprocity, Harte traveled to Russia and obtained permission for the Association to undertake WPA operations in the tsarist empire. Urban granted the American YMCA permission to start POW relief operations by constructing Association halls in Braunau-in-Böhmen in Austria and Sopronnyek in Hungary in May 1915.