Asia Korps The Asia Corps or Asia Korps ( German : " Asien - Korps " or " Levantekorps " ) was a detachment of the German Army , sent to assist the Ottoman Army during World War I . Pasha I . The first German troops despatched to assist the Ottoman Army in 1914 and 1915 were Pioneers , who assisted in the construction of roads in Sinai . In December 1914 , a Tropical Medical expedition was sent to work with Ottoman sanitary units in Palestine to combat epidemics of typhoid , typhus , dysentery and cholera . Once Serbia had been conquered , it became possible to send large quantities of equipment and munitions to the Ottoman Armies via the Danube River and Balkan railways . A detachment of specialist troops and officers , the Asia Korps , was assembled to increase the Ottoman Army ' s effectiveness in the use of equipment they hitherto lacked . In March 1916 , the " Pasha I Expedition " set out for Palestine . The various units of the expedition included : Fortress Railway Construction Company No . 11 and Railway Operating Companies Nos . 44 and 48 were also deployed to assist the Ottoman railway authorities on the lines of communication . In April , the 300th Flying Detachment ( " Pasha " ) was stationed in Beersheba with 14 Rumpler C . I aircraft . The other troops of the expedition joined them there in April . The Flying Detachment was subsequently stationed in El Arish and Bir El ' Abd . After Turkish defeats in the First Suez Offensive and Battle of Romani , they subsequently fell back to Beersheba and Ramallah . Pasha II . On 11 March 1917 , after the Fall of Baghdad to the British Army , the Ottoman Army assembled an Army Group codenamed " Yildirim " to recover Baghdad . The German Army increased the strength of the detachments with the Ottoman troops by despatching a second expedition , " Pasha II " under Major General Werner von Frankenberg zu Proschlitz , in August . Following Ottoman defeats in the Battle of Beersheba and Third Battle of Gaza in late October , the Yildirim Army Group was diverted to prevent further collapse in Palestine . After the capture of Jerusalem by the British in December , further reinforcements were despatched , including substantial fighting ground formations . The German troops forming " Pasha II " , and subsequent reinforcements were under the administrative control of the 201st Infantry Brigade commanded by Major General Werner von Frankenberg zu Proschlitz , and included : German staff officers with signal and other personnel formed a Corps headquarters within the Ottoman Eighth Army in Palestine , which was also termed the " Asia Corps " , although it is also referred to in Turkish histories as the " Left Wing Group " , commanded by Colonel Gustav von Oppen . Austro - Hungarian troops in the Middle East . Austria – Hungary also sent detachments of specialists and supporting arms to Turkey . The first units were sent to Gallipoli : Between the summer of 1916 and the end of the war , the following artillery units were serving on the Palestine front : Major Adolf Wilhelm Marno von Eichenhorst commanded this artillery group until 1917 , after which it was commanded by Captain Wladislaw Ritter von Truszkowski . The overall commander of Austro - Hungarian troops in Turkey was Feldmarschall - Leutnant Joseph Ritter von Pomiankowski . It was planned in 1917 and 1918 to send an " Orient - Korps " to Turkey , but this was abandoned . Final actions . In the Battle of Megiddo , the Ottoman forces west of the Jordan River were engulfed by the Allied offensive . The surviving German and Austrian detachments fought their way northward towards Damascus amid the routed Turkish armies . They drew the admiration of T . E . Lawrence , but few if any ultimately escaped death or capture .