During the First World War, the Ottoman Empire established a wide network of camps to house prisoners of war from the Allied powers.

Like most, the conditions were often poor, the treatment often harsh, and the complexes often established in some of the most remote, rural and desolate landscapes.

Yoska was one such camp, compromising a small collection of buildings in a rural town commended by the Ottoman army to house British officers.

Whilst its conditions were not the harshest, nor its prisoners the most dangerous, it became the scene for one of the most bizarre tales of escape of the First World War,

and just about any incarceration anywhere in the world would ever see, involving buried treasure, a Ouija board, and an audacious pair of pranksters with a strong desire to get home.

This is Dark Histories, where the facts are worse than fiction.

Hello and welcome to Dark History, Season 7 Episode 8. I'm the host Ben, as always.

This week we've got a little longer episodes, so I'm going to jump more or less straight into it.

Do you just want to give a quick heads up to any Patreon members?

I'm currently organising a live stream for the end of this month, and I'll be posting about it on the Patreon towards the end of this week,

so maybe like at the end of this week you might want to check out on there and see the details if you're interested.

But anyway, enough of that, as I say this episode is a little longer so we can try and get straight into it.

This episode is called Escape from Yosgat, Spooks of Jones and Hill.

In the autumn of 1914, three months after the outbreak of the First World War in Europe, battle on the Middle East and Front exploded when the Ottoman Empire entered alongside the Central Powers,

drawing Mesopotamia and Persian Gulf into the theatre.

The British, in particular, had one eye on the territory under their own empire, and one eye on the territory of the Ottomans, whilst the Russians had a vested interest in their own front.

By the end of the year, the Persian Gulf was in the hands of the British and the Russians, and the march continued throughout 1915 and into 1916.

Though the on top forces did not have their own way all the time, with the Ottomans fighting back on several fronts,

handing the British one of the greatest wartime losses that they had ever and would ever suffer at the siege of Kut.

In December of 1915, as many fronts saw a respite to the fighting due to the weather, the British Indian army had been busy in what would be modern day Iraq, pushing towards Baghdad

when there were forced to retreat down the Tigris river by the Ottoman forces, who had halted the British march in Tessifon.

The fighting had been hard for the British, and an almost 50% casualty rate had let them ineffective as an attacking power.

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