The last Turkish WWI veteran dies

Yakup Satar, the last Turkishy WWI veteran died last Wednesday at the age of 110. He fought at the Second Battle of Kut in the Mesopotamian campaign.

Satar was born in Crimea in 1898 into a Tartar family. His father, Zeki Bey, had been one of the Tartar chieftains who had fought for independence from the Russian Empire. In 1915 he enlisted in the Army of the Ottoman Empire. After basic training in Constantinople he was selected as part of a special 200-strong force trained in the techniques of gas warfare. He was captured in Mesopotamia in February 1917, as Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Maude’s British and Indian army drove the Ottoman Empire’s forces back up the Tigris from Basra towards Baghdad.

Released from captivity after the end of the First World War, Satar joined the forces of the Turkish National Movement under Mustafa Kemal in Anatolia which fought against the terms of the Allied partitioning of the Ottoman Empire. From 1919 to 1922 he fought in the Turkish War of Independence and the Greco-Turkish War which culminated in the declaration of the Turkish Republic in October 1923.

Satar settled in Anatolia at Eskisehir, 100 miles west of Ankara, where he married and had six children.

Satar’s death means that there are now just 12 WWI veteran alive. Franz Kunstler is now the only surviving Central Powers veteran.