Haidar-Pasha, or Haydarpaşa, train station in Constantinople, on the Sea of Marmora at the southeastern end of the Bosphorus. The station was the site of an explosion on September 6, 1917, as the Turks were preparing the Jildirim campaign. Two or three hundred cars of munitions and explosives were destroyed, losses the Turks could ill afford. From Jildirim: Deutsche Streiter auf heiligem Boden, Yildirim: German Soldiers on Holy Ground edited by Dr. Steuber, Chief General Physician, Retired, 1912/18 Army Physician in Palestine.
Bahnhof von Haidar PaschaRailway station of Haidar Pascha
"the Ottoman calm, however, was somewhat disturbed presently by a series of detonations that shook the city. Two or three hundred cars of munitions and explosives blew up very mysteriously in the railway station of Haidar-Pasha. The accident was due, I am convinced, to the carelessness of the Turkish soldiers entrusted with the unloading of various laden with munitions, that were moored to the wharf. . . .That afternoon and all night the fire blazed devouring what had been the most spacious and modern railway station in Asia Minor and probably in the Balkans also; and reducing to ashes millions of pounds sterling in building and rolling material of war."
Haidar-Pasha, or Haydarpaşa, is in Constantinople at the southwestern end of the Bosphorus on the Asian shore of the Sea of Marmora. The explosion destroyed, besides the railway station and rolling stock, warehouses and much of the harbor. Turkish forces were assembling at Aleppo in Syria to be prepared to deploy to Mesopotamia for the recapture of Baghdad, or to Palestine where the British were reinforcing their position. Estimates of the dead include hundreds of Turkish, German, and Austro-Hungarian troops, and 1,000 civilians (www.levantineheritage.com/haidarpasha-explosion.html, September 5, 2019). A mahona is a Turkish boat.
Four Years Beneath the Crescent by Rafael De Nogales, pp. 386, 387, copyright © 1926, by Charles Scribner's Sons, publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, publication date: 1926
1917-09-06, 1917, September, explosion, Haydarpaşa, Haidar-Pasha, Constantinople, Haidar Pascha
