Ottoman authors produced a large corpus of writing during the Balkan Wars and in its aftermath. The unprecedented dimensions of the defeat and the following human catastrophe triggered journalists, veterans, authors and others to reflect on the wars in various publications that formed a distinct Ottoman "culture of defeat". Among the Ottoman authors stood out former POWs who were detained during parts of the war in POW camps in Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece. For Ottoman readers, the plight of Ottoman rank-and-file POWs symbolized some of the worst cases of atrocities inflicted on Ottoman civilians and POWs during the Balkan Wars. However, Ottoman officers benefitted from much better conditions of captivity. According to international conventions in force, officers were detained in cities benefitting from limited freedom of movement during the day. This enforced sojourn in the major urban cities of the Balkan States made POWs, like the Ottoman author Râif Necdet [Kestelli], attentive observers of Balkan societies. After the end of the Second Balkan War some of these officers published their memoirs in the Ottoman press, and later as books. Their texts represent a particular category of the Ottoman writings on the Balkan Wars. While these texts are imbued with scenes of the Ottoman defeat and its ramifications, they also contain attempts to study the Balkan states from up close and to assess their success in the Balkan Wars. In my presentation I analyze the POWs' writings produced during the Balkan Wars against the context of the Ottoman public debate on the defeat, its causes and on the possible paths to secure a rejuvenation of the Ottoman nation. By comparing the texts written by ex-POWs with the writings of other Ottoman authors I will examine the particularities of their points of view and the POWs' specific contribution to the Ottoman perceptions of the Balkan Wars.