Caught by the Turks

Caught by the Turks by Francis Yeats-Brown plunges listeners into a harrowing and often darkly comic memoir of capture behind Ottoman lines during World War I. Yeats-Brown, a young aviator in Mesopotamia, recounts the November 1915 seizure near the Tigris and the strange, claustrophobic world of Turkish prisons and Constantinople hospitals that followed. Part war memoir, part travelogue, the book blends vivid frontline detail with sharp cultural observation: the bureaucracy and brutality of the Ottoman wartime machine, the psychology of imprisonment, and the absurdities that sustain men in captivity. Chapters brim with tense escape attempts, ingenious disguises, and portraits of fellow prisoners and local life, all written with Yeats-Brown’s candid wit and reflective eye. Historical context — the Mesopotamian campaign, Ottoman society in 1915, and the wider chaos of the Great War — frames the narrative without slowing its momentum. Ideal for listeners who love WWI memoirs, military history, escape narratives, or evocative travel writing, Caught by the Turks offers a compelling, human account of survival and resilience against the backdrop of the collapsing Ottoman Empire.