The Memoirs of Ra’uf al-Bahrani: An Iraqi-Ottoman Junior Infantry Officer’s Narrative of the First World War in Iraq and Iran

Abstract

Abstract

Abstract Samuel Hynes and Jay Winter transformed historians’ understanding of combatant memoirs of the First World War through rich theoretical engagement, but their studies predominantly focus on the Western Front. Baghdad-born, Ottoman Army-conscripted, infantry reserve officer Ra’uf al-Bahrani’s Arabic language memoir of World War I offers a fascinating corollary to those studies from the less well-known Ottoman theatres of combat in Iraq and Iran. Al-Bahrani’s positionality as a civilian-educated junior officer, sensitive to the people and places around him, led him to record keen observations of the daily activities and struggles of the war, including physical hardship, civilian suffering, inter-imperial connections, brutal combat, eye-opening travel and sight-seeing, traumatic stress, sumptuous meals, logistical challenges, scenes of natural beauty, and politicisation. This little-studied war memoir richly expands historians’ understanding of the global experiences of the First World War, and broadens narratives of the war in the Middle East.