20 Piastres

The Dette Publique Ottomane — the Ottoman Public Debt Administration — was a European-controlled supervisory body established in 1881 after the Ottoman government defaulted on its foreign loans. That a debt management institution, rather than a state bank, became an emergency currency issuer during the First World War reflects how far the empire's conventional financial infrastructure had collapsed by 1917. The imperial treasury could not sustain note production through normal channels, and the Administration stepped in to fill the gap.

These low-denomination wartime issues circulated under severe inflationary pressure and were often treated with public distrust — Ottoman paper money of the period suffered chronic depreciation, and many notes returned to circulation in poor condition after extensive handling. Survivors in better states are not common.