try Division commander, which was based on the experiences of that division in Galicia.
The fact that the Ottoman Army raised, trained, equipped, and employed stone troops has escaped general notice in the English language historiography of World War 1. However, in 1994, Dr. David Nicolle published a clear photograph of a platoon of Ottoman Army storm troops in Palestine in the summer of 1918. The men are outfitted in well fitting uniforms, German-style steel helmets, have under-arm grenade bags with stick grenades, German Mauser rifles, and puttee leggings. This unique photograph is important because the men look confident and fit, well fed, and arc thoroughly equipped - indeed, a picture that is at odds with our historical perception of the Ottoman Army in Palestine. Although it is dangerous to draw a generalised conclusion from Nicolle's photograph, it is obvious that the Turks, at least in one locality, gave a high priority to the selection of men for, and to the maintenance of, its assault troop formations.
On I September 1917, Enver Pasha ordered the general activation of assault troops within the Ottoman Army. Enver directed the XV Corps, the First Army, and the Fourth Army to activate the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Assault Battalions respectively. Additionally, he ordered each infantry division in the Yildirim Army Group and in the Fourth Army to activate assault detachments. Enver was very specific that only the best officers, NCOs, and men (`from the best units in the division, who were intelligent, healthy and hardy, and not more than twentyseven years of age') were selected for these elite units. Additionally, the assault units received better rations, a distinctive badge (an embroidered hand grenade), and conducted a one-month assault course. Later the divisional assault detachments matured into assault battalions. Initially, the Ottoman armies in Mesopotamia, western Anatolia, and Caucasia were excluded from the requirement to activate assault troops.
In the creation of assault battalions the Ottoman Army returned to an organisational architecture that it had abandoned in 1913. One of the Ottoman General Staff's organisational changes in 1914 was the abolition of the organic rifle regiment at army corps level and the organic rifle battalion at infantry division level. These highly specialised regiments and battalions were the Ottoman Army's equivalent of German Jäger or French chusseurs. The reason for this action was the inability of the army during the Balkan Wars to utilise effectively the rifle regiments and battalions in their proper doctrinal role. In fact, during the First Balkan War, Ottoman commanders tended to misuse their rifle battalions as immediate reserves or as a nucleus for ad hoc provisional formations. They were almost never used properly in reconnaissance, screening, or flank guard missions. Consequently, the Ottoman General Staff deactivated the rifle units in the spring of 1914 because the misuse of concentrations of hand-picked men degraded the overall quality of the regular infantry regiments. It should be noted that after World War 2 the US Army deactivated its Ranger battalions for the same reason - the concentration of elite soldiers in specialised units weakened the army's regular infantry establishment and there did not seem to be an appropriate tactical return on such an investment.
The activation of the assault battalion (hücüm tahur) essentially returned the Ottoman Army to the elitist organisational architecture of 1910-14. Each infantry division had three infantry regiments (of three infantry battalions) and one assault battalion, within which there was a high concentration of aggressive and fit officers and men. Unlike the German Army, the Turks formed no specialised assault or storm troop divisions.
By the end of 1917 the strategic and operational initiative in Palestine had passed to the British. Consequently, both the practical and technical need of the Ottoman Army to possess assault troops also passed. Nevertheless, the assault troop battalions of the Ottoman Fourth, Seventh, 