men in Lebanon & Syria did not feel related to or concerned by the rationale for Ottoman wars. When the Seferberlik was announced they sometimes hid during the process or fled during battles. As a countermeasure to the escaping from enslavery conscription or desertion from war fronts, the government sent bounty hunters to roam city streets and catch young men and deserters. It has been said that officials carried ropes with them to encircle, tie up and carry off boys and men on the run. The Syrian journalist Abd al-Ghani al-Utri in his book I’tirafat Shami ‘atiq; sira dhattyya wa suwar dimashqiyya (translated: Confessions of an old Damascene, Biography and Damascene pictures) suggests that Syrians have sanctified bread even since the Great War. The diary of a Palestinian Ottoman soldier, Ihsan Turjman, during WWI clearly describes the scarcity of foodstuffs and the overpricing sugar, rice and grains. In al-Ghazzi’s book Shirwal Barhum (translated: The Pants of Barhum), during Seferberlik people were depicted as fighting over lemon and orange rinds while children pick watermelon rinds from the mud. Siham Turjman tells the account of her mother who was then 14 years old and tells that during the Seferberlik everything was expensive, people would line up in front of the bakery at midnight to buy the following morning coal-like, burnt, and overpriced bread. Seferberlik is associated with cannibalism during the war’s famine. Memoirs and reports published shortly after the end of the Great War gave an account of the horrific scenes of famine that filled Lebanon’s streets. In Antun Yamin’s Lubnan fi al-Harb--a two-volume history published in 1919— a section entitled "Stories that Would Shake Rocks" gives a detailed report of moments when people attacked corpses of dead animals and children and ate them. Also, Hanna Mina in Fragments of Memory tells the childhood memories of his father: What are they supposed to do during this famine? Bide your time...people will eat each other when winter comes. They aren't to be blamed. During the Safar Barrlik, mothers ate their children. They became like cats and ate their children... What good will sticks or guns do? They'll only hasten death and bring people relief... Let's be patient... A way out may come from some unknown source. In his diary entry for April 29, 1915, a common soldier in the Ottoman military headquarters in Jerusalem, Ihsan Turjman (1893–1917), mentioned his encounter with a prostitute