During World War I, the Ottoman government sent approximately 1,000 orphan boys to Germany for vocational training as part of an ambitious wartime educational initiative, aiming to create skilled workers for the empire’s industrial development.

The programme largely failed to deliver its promises: most boys faced harsh conditions, labour shortages, poor treatment, and exploitation in factories and farms rather than structured education, with many actively resisting through letters, protests, or flight.

Germany’s defeat and the Ottoman collapse left many stranded; roughly 800 were repatriated in 1919, often traumatized, while a small number stayed and integrated in Germany. Historian Nazan Maksudyan describes it as a “Triangle of Regrets” highlighting the unrealized ambitions of both governments and the heavy human cost borne by the children.

A Little-Known Human Tragedy of the First World War

History usually remembers wars through battles, generals and peace treaties. Yet the greatest suffering is often borne by civilians, especially children. Among the least-known episodes of the First World War is the story of approximately one thousand Ottoman orphan boys who were sent to Germany to receive vocational training. Conceived as an ambitious educational initiative, the programme instead became one of the forgotten humanitarian tragedies of the war.^1

For decades, this remarkable episode remained largely absent from both Ottoman and German historiography. Only in recent years has historian Nazan Maksudyan, through extensive research in Ottoman and German archives, reconstructed the experiences of these children and restored their place in history. She characterises the episode as “A Triangle of Regrets”—a phrase that captures the failed expectations of governments and the heavy human cost borne by the children themselves.^2

The First World War devastated the Ottoman Empire. Military losses, epidemics, famine and economic collapse left hundreds of thousands of children without fathers or families. State orphanages (Darüleytams) rapidly became overcrowded, while the government struggled to provide food, clothing and education.^3

Against this background, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) government, under the wartime leadership of Enver Pasha, developed a programme in cooperation with Germany.........

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