Labour battalions (Turkey)

Ottoman labour battalions (Turkish: Amele Taburları, Armenian: Աշխատանքային գումարտակ, romanized: Ashkhatank’ayin gumartak, Greek: Τάγματα Εργασίας, romanized: Tagmata Ergasias[a]) were a form of unfree labour in the late Ottoman Empire.

[7] The laborers were assigned to perform construction works on the roads and railways and to transport the supplies the army needed in the battle front.

[16] Even Mark Lambert Bristol, who had a notably pro-Turkish bias,[17] reported that the Greek men in labour battalions were "treated like animals.

Elias Venezis, who survived the labour battalions, wrote about his experience in Number 31328: The Book of Slavery.

Sano Halo, a Pontian Greek, recalled that her father and grandfather had been taken to the labour battalions when she was a young girl.

[19][20] The Greek novelist Elias Venezis later described the situation in his work The Number 31328: The Book of Slavery (Το Νούμερο 31328).

Neyzi's paper on the basis of Paker's diary published by Jewish Social Studies presents an overall picture for the conditions in these battalions, which were composed entirely of non-Muslims.

[22] Dido Sotiriou in her anti-war novel Farewell Anatolia describes the harsh conditions of the labour battalions through the experiences of the protagonist.