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Experiences of Australian WW1 POWs Use the information in this powerpoint to complete the activity on the last slide.

Experiences of australian ww1 po ws

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Page 1: Experiences of australian ww1 po ws

Experiences of Australian WW1 POWsUse the information in this powerpoint to complete the activity on the last slide.

Page 2: Experiences of australian ww1 po ws

POWs of the TurksThe first Australians captured by the Turkish where the 32 crew members of the AE2 Submarine, a Submarine attacked and sunk by the Turks in the Sea of Marmara on 30 April, 1915.

The Turks captured other Australian soldiers from Gallipoli, the Sinai Desert, and in Palestine.

Page 3: Experiences of australian ww1 po ws

How did the Turks treat Australian

POWs?All up, the Turks captured around 217 Australian Troops.

More than 25% of that number died when they were imprisoned in the camp.

Conditions in Turkish camps were very poor.

There wasn’t much food and it was hard to get access to a doctor if you became sick.

Prisoners were forced to work on the construction of a railway 1100 kilometres away from the camp.

Prisoners suffered from malnutrition and diseases like typhus, malaria and meningitis.

Page 4: Experiences of australian ww1 po ws

POWs of the GermansDuring the war (from 1914 until 1918) Germany took

2.5 million prisoners.

From the middle of 1916 onwards more than 3800 of these were Australian troops on the Western Front.

8% of those soldiers died when they were prisoners of the Germans.

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How did the Germans treat Australian

POWs? German POW camps had similar problems to those of the Turkish

There was a lack of sanitation (sewerage), the housing was poorly built and not enough food was provided to the prisoners.

POWs who disobeyed German officers were set to Fort MacDonald, a prison known as the ‘Black Hole of Lille’, in northern France.

Here they were put on starvation rations, subject to beatings and forced to work in dangerous conditions building dugouts and loading shells near the German battle lines.

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The Role of the Red Cross

During the war, the Australian Red Cross Society supplied nearly 400 000 food parcels and over 35 000 clothing parcels to Australian POWs.

The International Red Cross kept and updated lists of those who were imprisoned – so they knew where POWs were located, and how they were faring.

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Repatriation

At the end of the war, the Central Powers quickly allowed their POWs to be returned to their home countries.

In comparison, the Allied Powers were much slower in returning their POWs.

France conditioned to use POWs as forced labour until about 1920, and Russia until 1922.

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Activity: What was it like to be an

Australian POW according to Source

A, B and C?

SOURCE A

“The [Kut – Mesopotamia] garrison included nine mechanics of the Australian Flying Corps. Only two would survive the nightmare march. “We were driven along like beasts,” one of the survivors recalled, “to drop out was to die.” Three-quarters of those who left Kut died in captivity, many while building a railway through the Taurus Mountains.”

SOURCE B – Quote from Australian War Memorial Website

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Source C