From Empire to Republic: Essays on the Late Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Volume 2

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface
Credits
The State and Intervention in Turkey
Ottoman Perceptions of the Capitulations 1800-1914
The Late Ottoman Empire
Trotsky’s Writings on the Ottoman State, the 1908 Revolution and the Balkan Wars 1912-13: A Review Article
Postage Stamps, Politics and Ideology in the Late Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Armed Neutrality and Intervention: August - November 1914
The Special Relationship: The Committee of Union and Progress and the Ottoman Jewish Political Elite, 1908-1918
Young Turk-Armenian Relations During the Second Constitutional Period, 1908-1914
The Development of Working-Class Consciousness in Turkey
The Progressive Republican Party, 1924-1925
The Historical Background of Turkey’s Foreign Policy
Kemalist Policy in the Age of Appeasement
Politics and Islam in Modem Turkey
Index

Citation preview

FERO Z AHMAD

Feroz Ahmad is Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. At present he is affiliated to Yeditepe University in Istanbul. His works on the later Ottoman Empire and Modem Turkey include The Young Turks, The Turkish Experiment in Democracy, 1950-1975 , The M aking o f M odem Turkey, and Turkey:

The Quest fo r Identity.

É

ISTANBUL BİLGİ UNIVERSITY PRESS

FROM EMPIRE TO REPUBLIC

Essays 0 « tmk La by Feroz Ahmad

u

O ttom an Em

n m and

Modern T urkey

Volume Two Is t a n b u l BİL6İ U n iv e r s it y Pr e s s 219 H is t o r y 26

ISBN 978-605-399-055-0 SET ISBN 978-605-399-057-4

COVER PICTURE ETHEM TEM - Mustafa Kemal Ata t Ork w ith women from Ankara during the opening of the Gazi O rman ÇIftl IÖI on 7 June 1925, FOLLOWING THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE HAT REFORMS.

First Ed ition , Istanbul , September 2008 O BIlgI Ilet Iş Im Grubu Yayinciuk MOz Ik Yapim ve Haber AJansi Ltd . Şt I. Yazişma Adres I: Inön O Caddesi, No : 95 Kuştepe Şişil 34387 İstanbul T elefon : 0212 311 50 00 - 311 52 59 / Faks : 0212 297 6314

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Istanbul Bilgi University Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data Istanbul Bilgi üniversitesi Kütüphanesi Kataloglama Bölümü tarafından kataloglanmıştır.

Ahmad, Feroz. From Empire to Republic 2 / Feroz Ahmad, p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-605-399-055-0 (set) ISBN 978-605-399-057-4 (v. 2: alk. paper) 1. Turkey—Politics and government—1908-1923. 2. Turkey-History—Revolution, 1908-1923. I. Title. DR486.A36 2008

Feroz Ahmad FROM EMPIRE TO REPUBLIC

Essays on the Late Ottoman Empire and Modern T urkey Volume T wo

Contents vH Preface b C redits

1 T h e State and Intervention in Turkey 19 O ttom an Perceptions o f the C apitulations 1 8 0 0 -1 9 1 4

45 T h e Late O ttom an Em pire 85 T rotsky’s W ritings on the O ttom an State, the 1 9 0 8 R evolution and the Balkan W ars 1 9 1 2 -1 3 : A Review A rticle

101 Postage Stam ps, Politics and Ideology in the Late O ttom an Em pire ill O ttom an Arm ed N eutrality and

Intervention August - N ovem ber 1 9 1 4 115 The Abrogation of the Capitulations 127 Establishment of a Sovereign State 130 The Road to War

149 T he Special R elationship: T h e C om m ittee o f U nion and Progress and the O ttom an Jew ish P olitical E lite, 1 9 0 8 -1 9 1 8

175 Young Turk-A rm enian R elations D uring the Second C onstitu tional Period, 1 9 0 8 -1 9 1 4

203 T h e D evelopm ent o f W orking-C lass C onsciousness in Turkey

Vİ contents

239 ^ Progressive R epu blican Party, 1 9 2 4 -1 9 2 5 239 Introduction 241 Towards the Establishment o f the PRP 250 PRP in Opposition 259 Conclusion 261 T h e H isto rical Background o f Turkey’s Foreign Policy 293 K em alist P olicy in the Age o f A ppeasem ent 303 P olitics and Islam in M od em Turkey 333 Index

Preface

ublishing an anthology o f an author’s already-published essays and articles in a volume may perhaps be justified by bringing together writings scattered in a number an journals and books, not always easy to come by, in one place. The thirteen pieces in this volume were published between 1984 and 200 7 in academic journals and books; few appear for die first time in English, having only been published in Turkish. Again I would like to thank the editors and publishers o f the journals and volumes in which these articles originally appeared. Again a word o f thanks to Fahri Aral and his team at Bilgi University Press for the making it a pleasure to work with them, and to my editor Goksun Yazici for her professionalism in the editing of the text. Finally, I must also thank Sakir Dincsahin, my colleague at

P

Yeditepe University, who helped me prepare these pieces before they were sent to the publisher.

Feroz Ahmad Istanbul, August 2008

Credits

1. “The State and Intervention in Turkey” was published in Turcica revue d ’études Turques, vol. xvi, 1984, 51-64. Translated as “Türkiye’de Devlet ve Müdahale” in Türkiye Sorunlari -1988 Yilligi, Alan, İstanbul, Feb. 1988,136-146. 2. “Ottoman Perceptions o f the Capitulations 1800-1914” in the Journal o f Islam ic Studies, 11/i, January 2 0 0 0 ,1 -2 0 . 3. “The Late Ottoman Empire” in The G reat Powers and the End o f the Ottom an Em pire, London 1984,5-30, London 1984,5-30, M arian Kent (ed.). 4. “Leon Trotsky’s Writings on the Ottoman State, the 1908 Revolution, and the Balkan Wars 1912-1913” was written as a review essay and was in Turkish in Tarih ve Toplum, no. 17, May 1 9 8 5 ,1 2 18. It appears for the first time in English in this book. 5. “Postage Stamps, Politics and Ideology in the Late Ottoman Empire” was written for a volume to honour Professor Tarik Zafer Tunaya. It was published in Turkish in Tarik Z afer Tunaya’ya Armağan , Istanbul, 1992, 335-342 and appears here for the first time in English.

X credits for volum e two

6. “Ottoman Armed Neutrality and Intervention: AugustNovember 1914” in Studies on O ttom an D iplom atic History , no. iv, Sinan Kuneralp (ed.) Istanbul : the Isis Press (n.d. 1990?), 41-61. This paper was pat o f ongoing research that I am still engaged in on the Ottomans and World War One. 7. “The Special Relationship: the Committee o f Union and Progress and the Ottoman-Jewish Political Elite 1908-1918” was read at the Quincentennial International Conference on “the Jews in the Ottoman Empire and M odem Turkey”, Istanbul, 31 M ay-4 June 1992. It was published in 2002 in the volume Jew s, Turks, O ttom ans , Avigdor Levy (ed.), Syracuse University Press: Syracuse, New York, 2 0 0 2 , pp. 212-230 & notes, 332-5. 8. “Young Turk-Armenian Relations during the Second Constitutional Period, 1908-1914”, was prepared for the First International Social Studies Symposium on “The Art o f Living Together in Ottom an Society: The Case o f Turkish-Armenian Relations”, Erciyes University, April 2 0 -2 2 ,2 0 0 6 . It was published in volume two as part o f the four volumes entitled İkinci M eşrutiyet D önem inde Jö n Türk-Ermeni İlişkileri in H oşgörü Toplumunda Erntender, M . M etin Hülagü et als (eds.), Erciyes University, Kayseri, 2 0 0 7 , vol.ii, 161-187. The original, written in English, is published here for the first time. 9. “The Development o f Class Consciousness in Turkey” was first read as a paper at the International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam, 29-30 M arch 1992. It was published in the volume W orkers and W orking Classes in the M iddle E ast: Struggles, H istories, H istoriographies , Zachary Lockman (ed.), SUNY: Albany, 1994, pp. 133-163. This is a revised and enlarged version o f the orig­ inal paper. 10. The paper on “The Progressive Republican Party of 19241925” was read at “the International Conference on Continuity and Change in Turkish Political Life”, held at Bilkent University, Ankara, 10-12 November 1988. It was published in Political Parties and

D em ocracy in Turkey, M etin Heper and Jacob Landau (eds.), London & New York: I. B. Tauris, 1991,65-82. 11. The papei; “H istorical Background o f Turkish Foreign Policy” was read at the conference on Turkish Foreign Policy orga­ nized by the Kokkalis program on Southeastern ad East-Central Europe at die Kennedy School o f Government and the Cento: for Middle Eastern Studies, held at Harvard University, 24-25 October 1998. It was published in The Future o f Turkish Foreign Policy , Lenore G. M arlin and Dimitiris Keridis (eds.), The M IT Press, Cambrh%e, Massachusetts and London, 2 0 0 2 , pp.9-33. 12. “Kemalist Foreign Policy and Appeasement in the Thirties”, was read as the Atatürk Memorial Lecture at the Ministry o f Foreign Affairs, Ankara, 11 November 1988. It is published here for the first time, revised and enlarged. 13. “Politics and Islam in Modem Turkey”, was read at the conference on “Retreating States and Expanding Societies”, organized by Social Science Research Council and die American Council o f Learned Societies Joint Committee on the Near and Middle East, Aixen-Provence, 2 5 -2 7 M arch 1988. It was published in M iddle Eastern Studies, vol.27/i, January 1 9 9 1 ,3 -2 1 .

The State and Intervention in Turkey

ny student of Ottoman-Turkish history is likely to be struck by the persistent emphasis placed on the state to explain the rich and varied past o f the Turkish people. This emphasis is not at all misplaced because the Turkish state has indeed played a role of the utmost importance. In fact, this role has at times been so overwhelming that a certain mystique has grown up around the state which might even justify the use o f the Gramscian term “statolatory” to describe this phenomenon. Such has been the power o f this mystique that the state has come to acquire an identity which seems to set it outside and above society as though it has no social basis. This mystique has been captured in modem literature, most notably by Kemal Tahir in D evlet Ana, as well as in folklore where “Devlet Baba” is often portrayed as the ultimate arbiter at least in this world. It is also reflected in politics and the task of “saving the state” became the principal concern of all patriots from the Young Turks to General Kenan Evren. All o f them, in one way or another have kept asking the same basic question: how can this state be saved? (Bu devlet nastl kurtartlabilir?) The reason for this perception is not difficult to find. Until the

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from empire to republic essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

nineteenth century the Ottoman state, whether we describe it as patri­ monial, or as an oriental despotism based on the “Asiatic Mode o f Production”, or as Samir Amin’s “tributary state”, was a centralised institution which intervened in order to exploit all classes o f society without promoting anyone o f them. As a result, the social and eco­ nomic structure tended to remain essentially stable and stagnant since no sector o f the economy - agrarian, commercial, or industrial - was permitted to become dominant and upset the balance. This description o f the state of affairs remains generally valid until the beginning o f the nineteenth century when the Ottomans were forced to deal with an aggressive and dynamic industrial Europe, leading to a rupture between the state and its economy. It was under these circumstances that the Sublime Porte was forced to renegotiate the capitulations with Great Britain in 1811 and then sign the Anglo-Ottoman Commercial Treaty in 1838. Superficially, the nineteenth-century state seems to resemble its classical predecessor; it seems as patrimonial and interventionist as before and power as centralised. Yet on closer scrutiny, it is possible to see that the Tanzimat state, which began to take shape as the reforms unfold after 1839, was rather different. For one thing, it began to move away from patrimonialism, and for another, its interventionism had become selective; its aim was to create a totally new social struc­ ture which would compensate for the state’s rupture from the econo­ my. Thus state intervention was no longer designed to merely regulate society as in the past, its purpose was now, broadly speaking, social engineering. That meant intervening on behalf of interests in need of promotion in order to create a modem economy, and against those forces which were considered anachronistic and obstacles to change. In the light of their behaviour, it no longer makes sense to argue that nineteenth-century reformers had no notion of modem economics, or that the structural transformation they were trying, not always suc­ cessfully, to introduce, lacked both theory or purpose. It is hard to imagine that they did not understand the significance o f the dynamic

the state and intervention in turkey 3

trends in Europe, and closer to home in Egypt, where Mohammed Ali, their own vassal, was struggling to modernise the economy. It may be true that the impulse to reform the empire resulted from external factors. But that does not preclude die assumption in the minds o f the reformers that the empire’s penetration by and absorp­ tion into the growing world market was a good way, perhaps the only one, to survive and keep up with a rapidly changing world. This notion o f the trickle-down effect persisted throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. It was partially rejected by the Unionist wing o f the Young Turks after the revolution o f 1908 and by the sta­ tist faction among the Kemalists during the republic. But it once again became die prevailing view after World War D and continues to be so today. In the sixties and seventies, critics o f this theory who recognised its origins described it as a reflection o f the “Tanzimat mentality” ( Tanzimat kafast). We should not expect to find a more sharply defined theory of economic development in the Tanzimat period. But there is ample evi­ dence, as Professors Findikoglu and Mardin showed some years ago, that Ottomans o f this period were quite familiar with English and con­ tinental political economy;1 we should be rather surprised if they were not, seeing how anxious they were to emulate the West. M oreover the reformers were sophisticated enough to tailor some o f the theories to the environment. Thus rather than see the role o f the state as that of nightwatchman, as liberal theory required, they recognised the need for active state intervention - the state as social engineer- in order to carry out the badly-needed structural transformation. The Anglo-Ottoman Commercial Treaty of August 1838 was perhaps the first conscious step taken to destroy existing social and economic structures in order to make way for new ones. Until quite recently, Sultan Selim III and Mahmut II had tried to protect local1 1

Ziyaeddin Fahri Fındıkoğlu, Türkiye'de İktisat Tedrisatı Tarihçesi ve İktisat Fakültesi Teşkilâtı, 1946; Şerif Mardin, Türkiye'de İktisadi Düşüncenin Gelişmesi (1838-1918)y 1962; and Tevfık Çavdar, Türkiye'de Liberalizmin Doğuşu, 1982.

4 from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

trade and industry by favouring Muslim merchants and craftsmen against European competition. This was marked by the emergence of the so-called Hayriye Tiiccart who» despite the privileges granted by the sultans, were unable to challenge the dominance o f the European merchants, given the conditions under which they were forced to com­ pete. The 1838 treaty ended this anomaly by allowing foreign mer­ chants to engage direcly in internal trade for the first time. Prior to 1838 internal trade had been regulated through monopolies sold by the state to Ottoman merchants and producers were required to sell their goods only to monopoly holders. The same procedure applied to goods for export. The abolition of these monopolies enabled foreign merchants to compete with Ottoman merchants and, within a short time, eliminate them from this market as well. The consequences of the treaty were felt most sharply in coastal regions most easily accessible to foreign penetration. In the interior, parts o f which remained isolated well into the twentieth century despite the railw ays, domestic goods continued to prevail. Nevertheless, the already declining crafts industry was dealt a severe blow, leading to the erosion of the guild system. These developments must have seemed all for the good in the eyes o f those who wanted to bring about the rapid westernisation o f the empire because old struc­ tures were being destroyed and Ottoman society was being forced to innovate. W ithin a short time, the empire had begun to move in the direction o f a money economy, this being marked by an unsuccessful attempt to introduce paper money in 1840. The considerable import of foreign goods which could only be purchased with cash, and not acquired by barter increased the demand for cash in the countryside. The state responded to this situation by abolishing tax farming in 1839 and replacing it, in theory at least, by direct collection and stip­ ulating that taxes had to be paid in cash and not in kind. Under this modified system there was a marked increase in commercial activity, especially in the countryside where the peasantry was forced to produce more and more for the market so as to be able

the state and intervention in turkey 5

to pay the taxes and buy imported necessities. In this period, the eco­ nomic significance of rural moneylenders, who were largely nonMuslims, increased and peasants became dependent on them, some­ times giving up their land in lieu o f debts. Thus, whichever way one looks at it, the Tanzimat state’s willingness to acquiesce to free trade was momentous; one is tempted to say that it introduced capitalism into the Ottoman Empire avant la lettre.2 There is need for caution, however since the Tanzimat states­ men were not free traders on principle but only out of pragmatism. They seemed to view the introduction o f free trade as a way to destroy old economic structures and begin the process o f laying the material foundations o f modem ones. State intervention was expected to play the principal role in this process. This attitude may be witnessed most clearly in the period from the early 1840s to the eve o f the Crimean War when "a great number o f Ottoman state manufacturing facilities were built. In variety as well as in number in planning, in investment and in attention given to internal sources o f raw materials these man­ ufacturing enterprises far surpassed the scope o f all previous efforts and mark this period as unique in Ottoman history. They constituted the main Ottoman hope for a true industrial revolution.”3This hope was soon dashed and Edward Clark provides all the reasons for the failure. One wonders if Ottoman policy makers would not have thrown open this sector o f the economy to foreign enterprise if the European Powers had shown an interest. The Ottoman ruling class raised no strong objections to either foreign loans or to railway con­ struction. Had European capital been available for industrial develop­ ment that too would have been welcomed with open arms as it would be in the future. But the historical conjuncture was not auspicious. The 2

We should not be surprised o f the use o f the term capitalism was not widespread in late nineteenth-century Turkey; only in 1918 did some observers note the beginning of the age of capi­ talism in the empire. Even in Europe the term did not come into wider currency until the 1860s. E. J . Hobsbawm, The Age o f Capital 1 8 4 8 -1 8 7 5 , p .l

3

Edward Clark, “T he Ottoman Industrial Revolution”. International Journal o f Middle East

Studies, vol. 5 ,1 9 7 4 , pp. 6 5-76.

6 from em piic to lepublic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

West had yet to reach the stage o f development when it would invest in foreign industry. For the moment, preference was given to invest­ ments in railways, harbours, public utilities, and mining, areas which accelerated the expansion o f the European economy by providing raw materials and opening new markets. By the 1860s the impact o f constant economic decline, which affected the Muslims (and Jews) o f the empire more adversely than the Christians, had reached a point where artisans and merchants com­ plained to the sultan and sought redress. They held the high bureau­ crats o f the Sublime Porte responsible for their plight and asked the sultan to intervene on their behalf in order to reverse the trend. It is worth noting how the character o f the state had changed since the beginning o f the Tanzimat period with initiative passing from the Palace to the Porte, with the sultan reigning while the grand vezir ruled. That is why the architects o f this epoch, Reşid, Âli, and Fuad Paşa’s, left a more vivid impression on history than the sultans. However by the 1860s, an opposition which would flower into the Young Ottoman movement had begun to emerge and looked to Sultan Abdiilaziz to provide the remedy for the empire’s ills. One outcome of the opposition’s complaints against the Tanzimat’s economic order was the formation o f the Commission for Industrial Reform (tslah-t Sanayi Komisyonu) to investigate the matter. The commission recom­ mended four measures to deal with the complaints: (i) the protection of industry by increasing customs; (ii) the organisation o f industrial and trade fairs; (iii) the setting up o f industrial-technical schools; and (iv) the organisation of artisans into industrial companies with privi­ leges which would enable them to withstand foreign competition. Such companies were formed but as the state lacked the power to pro­ tect them by raising tariffs they soon went under. The commission itself was abolished in 1874.4

4

Unpublished article by Gündüz ö k çü n , uThe Ottoman Legacy and Economic Development to 1 9 3 0 ".

the state and intervention in turkey 7

This was perhaps the first example o f an Ottoman-Muslim pressure group being able to exert sufficent influence on the state to force it to take their interests into account. Thereafter despite this ini­ tial set-back, the character o f state intervention underwent a marked change. For one thing, the free-trade policies o f the Tanzimat regime were discredited by the criticism of Young Ottoman intellectuals who articulated the grievances o f the declining stratum the state had failed to save. Furthermore, these policies had proved disastrous by the very fact that they had brought the empire to the verge o f bankruptcy. Under these circumstances, and aided by an external crisis involving the Great Powers of Europe, the Young Ottomans were able to force the regime to adopt a constitution in 1876. One of its aims was to establish the supremacy o f an elected parliament over the executive, namely the sultan and the bureaucracy, especially the latter. It is premature to see the constitutional regime as a manifesta­ tion of the power of either “rising classes” or a “national bour­ geoisie”. If anything this regime was the child of the depressed classes seeking relief from free trade, and that required a strong intervention­ ist state. Yet thanks to the property requirements for deputies for the assembly, those who were able to enter this august body were the wealthy minority - Muslim and non-Muslim. These people had actu­ ally benefitted from the laissez-faire policies and from the empire’s absorption into the world-market economy. Therefore they preferred a weak state unable to resist further penetration. Given this contra­ diction and the constitutional regime’s lack o f a social basis, Abdülhamid II was able to shelve the constitution without meeting much resistence. For the next generation the Hamidian state live with this contradiction, unable to find a resolution and leaving it to the Young Turks to do so.

The key to an understanding of the Ottoman state in the nineteenth century seems to be its lack o f a social base and its determination to

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from empire to republic: essays on the late ottom an empire and m odem turkey

create one. In theory it could have done so by promoting the interests of any one o f the existing economic groups, merchants, artisans, or landholders, and hope that they would develop into a class. In prac­ tice, promoting the first two groups made little sense since the eco­ nomic dominance o f the West guaranteed the failure of indigenous commerce and industry. The Porte therefore decided to cultivate the landholders and use this stratum to form the foundations of the state. Despite the importance of commerce and industry in the overall equi­ librium o f the Ottoman economy, land remained the primary factor since it provided the bulk o f the state’s revenue. M oreover it was the only part o f the economy which still remained in Muslim hands, unaf­ fected by the capitulations and therefore capable of being transformed into a reliable indigenous source o f political power against the exter­ nal threat. If this interpretation has any validity, then in the period follow­ ing the signing of the "Deed o f Agreement” (Sened-i ittifak) in 1808 the first steps were taken to distinguish between political and eco­ nomic powei; both o f which had been the monopoly o f the classical Ottoman state. The nineteenth-century reformers were willing to abandon economic power to the landed notables (the ayan and the derebeys) in return for the latters’ submission to the state’s political supremacy marked by the centralisation of power. N ot all notables accepted this equation and therefore some had to be coerced into sub­ mission. But we ought not to be deceived by the use of force against those whose interests the state was trying to further. Nineteenth-cen­ tury charters and legislation, for example the edicts o f 1839 and 1856, the Land Code o f 1858, and the 1876 Constitution, were all steps in the recognition and legalisation o f private property generally, and land in particular. The security o f property, which was the outcome of the state surrendering its right to confiscate in 1839, has rightly been seen as a turning-point in Turkey's economic history.5 5

Mardin, op. cit.y pp. 8-9.

the state and intervention in turkey 9

Apart from the security of property, Ottoman landords acquired greater economic freedom from state controls as soon as the 1838 Treaty went into effect. In keeping with the widely prevalent notion among literate Ottomans that the empire had to adopt the division of labour necessitated by Great Britain’s industrial supremacy, the Porte gave up its buying monopoly and allowed the producers to sell direct­ ly to foreign buyers and their agents. This led to commercial agricul­ ture on a large scale and landlords prospered while land values soared. The consolidation of landholdings began to take place in this period thanks to the Land Code of 1858. By 1876, landlords had emerged as an interest group capable of furthering their interests in the new par­ liament. Thereafter they safeguarded their interests all too well, becom­ ing within one generation the principal obstacle to economic change. The Sublime Porte took the ongoing social transformation into account when it passed the citizenship law in 1869. This piece of leg­ islation may have been designed to cut the ground from under the feet of the Powers which granted protégé status to the sultan’s non-Muslim subjects, thereby placing them outside Ottoman jurisdiction. If that was its purpose it did not work. But it was more than that. The notion of citizen and citizenship, noted M ax Weber, was unknown to the world to Islam and was a specifically modem, western concept like that o f the bourgeoisie. The significance of this concept in social his­ tory was threefold: First, citizenship may include certain social categories or classes which have some communal or econom ic in terest... Second, in the political sense, citizenship implies membership in the state, with its connotations as the holder o f certain political rights. Finally, by citi­ zens sense, we understand those strata which are drawn together in contrast w ith the bureaucracy or the proletariat and others outside their circle, as ‘persons o f property and culture’, entrepreneurs, recip­ ients o f funded incom es, and in general all persons o f academic cul­ tiv e, a certain class standard o f living, and a certain social prestige.6 6

M ax Weber, G eneral Econom ic History, Collier paper ed., 1961, pp. 2 3 3-34.

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from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and modern turkey

Following Webet, it seems fair to conclude that by passing this law the state was trying to encourage the articulation of social différ­ enciation in Ottoman society which would in time evolve into a class structure. Given this fact, we should expect a certain amount o f decen­ tralisation within the power structure and that is precisely what seems to happen during the very brief episode o f the first constitutional peri­ od (1876-78). But the crises faced by the empire in these years, finan­ cial, and diplomatic culminating in a war with Russia, were bound to weaken these tendencies and create a situation favouring the restora­ tion o f the sultan’s autocracy. That is what happened in February 1878 when the sultan dissolved the parliament and shelved the con­ stitution for the next thirty years. The concerns of the Hamidian state were radically different from those of its predecessor. Abdiilhamid came to power during the course o f a financial crisis which soon after led to foreign financial control in Egypt, still an Ottoman province, and to British occupation which was most alarming to Istanbul. His regime naturally gave “priority to budget deficits among other economic issues, indicating that the ultimate aim o f the Ottomans during this period was to balance the budget...”78Whenever possible liberal economic practices were abandoned though the expanding world market and the regime of capitulations precluded actual protectionism. Yet thanks to the politi­ cal success o f Prussia-Germany, especially after the unification and the creation of the German Empire, the German model acquired a certain amount o f popularity. In the General Staff College the ideas of Friedrich List competed with those o f classical liberalism, taught by Kazanlı Akyiğitoğlu Musa and Ohannes Efendi respectively.* The outcome of Hamidian reaction was that the social base of the state which had been somewhat enlarged during the Tanzimat era and the state came to be identified primarily with the interests of the 7

Unpublished article by Engin Akarli, “Econom ic Problems o f Abdiilhamid IPs Reign (1876-

8

Mardin, op. cit., pp. 5 0 -5 1 , citing Fındıkoğlu.

1 9 0 9 )” .

the state and intervention in turkey

11

dynasty. Such was the price o f a generation o f absolutism. The state's response to the concerns o f the different social groups, even the land­ lords, was pragmatic and manipulative, designed to co-opt them rather than enhance their development. In turn, lacking an active par­ liament these groups were not able to organise as pressure groups and act on their own behalf to convert the state into an instrument to fur­ ther their interests. Therefore, all those social developments that the citizenship law hinted at were frozen for the next thirty years. While the long-term consequences of such a rupture can lead to endless spec­ ulation, one can at least say that it distorted the evolution o f state and society irrevocably. The revolution o f 1908, carried out by the Committee o f Union and Progress (CUP), attempted to correct this distortion by restoring the constitution o f 1876 and all the institutions that came with it. But the constitutional movement became far more significant as soon as it became clear that the Unionists were no longer willing to leave the affairs o f state solely to the members o f the old ruling elites, repre­ sented by the Palace and the Porte. The Unionists belonged to a social stratum very different from that of the elites, the startum one might loosely describe as the traditional petty bourgeoisie uprooted by the empire's integration into the world economy. Having been relegated to the sideline in the late nineteenth century, one o f the aims o f this stra­ tum was to return to the mainstream. The Unionist movement was decentralised and grasstroots in character the petty bourgeoisie being particularly strong in the provinces. This explains why Salonica remained the capital o f the Unionist movement until 1912 when the city was captured by the Greeks during the First Balkan W ar; only then did the CUP move to Istanbul. The Unionists retained the Young Ottoman critique of state and society and their prescription for reform. To these they added newer ideas brought into the empire by Turkish emigres from Tsarist Russia, men like Yusuf Akçura and Ismail Gasprinski. These men had a greater awareness o f the social structure o f capitalist societies and they

12

from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

proposed that a similar class structure be created in the Ottoman Empire, particularly among the Turks. Akçura went as far as to issue the warning that uIf the Turks fail to produce among themselves a bourgeoisie class by profiting from European capitalism, the chances o f survival o f a Turkish society composed only o f peasants and officals will be very slim .”9 Given such tendencies, the character o f state intervention under the Unionists was bound to be dramitically different from anything witnessed before. One must take note o f the populist movement, obvi­ ously inspired by the example of the N arodniks. The Unionists encouraged it and manipulated it, and used it to rationalize their role as the watchdogs of the state until they seized it in 1913. Initially, this created a o f dual power, rather like the one in Russia until November 1917, with the secret Committee o f Union and Progress in the role of the Soviets. For obvious reasons, this situation was unsatisfactory to both the old ruling class as well as to the Unionists. The latter attempt­ ed to resolve it by cautiously penetrating the state, having their mem­ bers appointed to strategic ministries as under-secretaries. But this ploy did not work very well and in the end they carried out a coup d ’é­ tat in January 1913. Once in power the Unionists began to carry out a through transformation of the state and its policies. It is doubtful if the Unionists would have carried out such rad­ ical policies as they did had war not broken out in August 1914. For one thing, they were demoralised after the disaster of the Balkan wars and therefore in a cautious and compromising mood. But once the Great Powers were at war and in no position to intervene in Turkish affairs, the Unionists were quick to seize the opportunity to establish full sovereignty. They did so by abrogating the capitulations on 1 October 1914. After that the state, no longer intimidated by the fear 9

Quoted in Niyazi Berkes, The D evelopent o f Secularism in Turkey, 1 964, p. 4 2 6 . On Yusuf Akçura we now have François Georgeon*s excellent monograph, Aux Origines du Nationalisme

Turc - Yusuf Akçura (1876-1935), 198 0 which gives the article quoted in translation on pp. 129-30.

the state and intervention in turkey

*3

of foreign interference, carried out a programme whose goal was to lay the foundations of an indigenous capitalism with a MuslimTurkish bourgeoisie. I have written about the policies o f this period elsewhere, and they may be examined in far greater detail in Zafer Toprak’s recenty study.101 The outcome o f these wartime policies was a totally new situa­ tion in which a new class, as yet weak and undeveloped, was able to influence and manipulate state and government through the mediation of the CUP. In 1917 the future role that the state was expected to play was debated in the press. Those opposed to the predatory profiteering o f the emerging bourgeoisie proposed a purely statist economy and dismissed reliance on private, individual initiative as unnecessary. They argued that in the domain o f economic affairs the individual tended to be selfish and neglected the general good. Such behaviour led to social chaos and class conflict. The answer was to opt for a sta­ tist solution, the implication being state capitalism, which would maintain social peace and harmony. Opponents of this position accepted the fact that the state would o f necessity continue to play an important role in the economy. But they maintained that in their formulation the state would not attempt to supplant the private sector or replace the individual. Rather the state’s function would be to show the individual the way to maxi­ mum profit and create the conditions most favourable for his devel­ opment. The model for the new Turkey, it was suggested, was Germany where the state’s functions were supervision and control.11 This debate on the role of the state continued into the republi­ can period. The Kemalist state continued to pursue the Unionist poli­ cy o f carrying out a bourgeoisie revolution by proxy in the more con­

10 Fcroz Ahmad, "Vanguard o f a Nascent Bourgeoisie: the Social and Economic Policies o f the

11

Young Turks 1 9 0 8 -1 9 1 8 ", in Osman Okyar and Halil İnalcık (eds.). The Social and Economic History o f Turkey (1071-1920), 1980, pp. 329-50. Zafer Toprak, Türkiye’de “Milli iktisat " (1908-1918), İstanbul, 1982. Ahmad, op. d t., pp. 346-7.

14 from empire to

republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

ducive climate o f nationhood. That was only natural while the bour­ geoisie remained weak and undeveloped. The danger as that in this stage o f dependence this new class could easily be overwhelmed by the statists in the Republican People’s Party (RPP). This threat became most acute in times of world crisis whose impact was also felt in Turkey. Thus early in 1930, under the impact of the great depression which was seen in Turkey as the failure o f private enterprise, the experiment with liberalism was curbed and the state intervened in order to take counter-measures.12 This time the Kemalist had the example o f the single-party state, such as the Soviet Union, Italy, and Germany after 1933, where state controls had helped to cushion the economic crisis. In these cir­ cumstances state intervention increased sharply and Statism was incorporated into the ideology o f Kemalism along with the other five principles, namely Republicanism , N ationalism , Populism, Secularism, and Revolutionism. Until the mid-thirties it seemed as though statism might become an end in itself and that the bureaucrat­ ic faction in the RPP might succeed in establishing state rather than liberal capitalism. But republican liberals, led by Celai Bayai; counter­ attacked and thanks to Atatürk’s mediation held off the extreme sta­ tists led by Recep Peker. Even Bayai; a firm believer in free enterprise, recognised the immaturity of the Turkish bourgeoisie and the need for state intervention to build it up. He feared that under the influence of men like Pekei; statism could assume proportions that would smother the nascent private sector. He issued warnings against that possibility and asked that private enterprise be given a greater share o f the national economy. Despite a certain amount o f equivocation during the thirties, Bayar’s interpretation o f statism prevailed. The Turkish bourgeoisie continued to grow though still very much in the shadow of the state. The initiative continued to remain with the bureaucracy and on occa­ 12

See Korkut Boratav, “Kemalist economic policies and etatism”, in Ali Kazancigil and Ergun özbudun (eds), Atatürk Founder o f a M odem State, 1981, pp. 165-90.

the state and intervention in turkey * 5

sions (as with the Capital Levy - Varlık Vergisi - of 1942 and other wartime measures) it could be most threatening. Ironically the Capital Levy may have been designed to benefit the Turkish-Muslim elements in the bourgeoisie by discriminating against the non-Muslims. Never­ theless the class as a whole was alarmed by these arbitrary and unjust measures and by its weakness and dependence on a state it had no con­ trol oven The confidence o f this class was shattered once and for all. The post-war crisis in Turkey heralded another active phase of state intervention, this time to compensate for the destruction o f the European economy to which Turkey's economy was tied. At the time, few realised that the United States of America would soon step in to fill the breach. For the moment the statists in the RPP decided that the only alternative was to create an autarchic society free o f external pressures. To bring this about they had to establish their control over the land by carrying out a radical programme o f reform and distribu­ tion. Land reform measures had been introduced in the Assembly on various occasions during the republic but they had never passed. Such was the power o f the landed interests. This time, after a great deal of lobbying and party discipline, the measure passed in June 1945. The political outcome of its passage was to undermine the tacit alliance, already strained by the extensive state intervention o f the war years, between the military-civilian bureaucracy, the intelligentsia, the urban middle class, and the landlords. This alliance, formed during the national struggle, had become the foundation o f the monoparty state. Once the land reform Bill had become law opponents of the statist world view came out into the open and announced the formation for the opposition Democrat Party (DP) in January 1946. Four years later, this party won the elections and came to power. The principal feature of the DP campaign between 1946 and 1950 was its promise to liberate the citizen from the heavy hand of the republican state. This propaganda, more than anything else, account­ ed for its overwhelming electoral success because of the unpopularity of the state, especially in the countryside. Otherwise it is difficult to

ı6

from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and modem turkey

explain the paradox of an anti-land reform party winning a massive mandate from the peasantry. Turkey was ready for the partial liberalisation that resulted from DP rule. In economic affairs, the Democrats argued that by sell­ ing state enterprises to private individuals they were implementing statism as Kemalism had intended. One o f the aims o f Kemalism had been to nurture a class which, once strong enough, would take over from the state. That is what would happen under the Democrats. The irony was that the bourgeoisie refused to play the role that was assigned to it. They failed to buy state factories, even at bargain prices and preferred to invest their capital in commercial ventures where profits were higher and immediate. As a result, even under DP rule the state continued to play the major role in the economy, though now it did so in the service of the politically-dominant private sector. Between 1908 and 1945 the state played the role o f creator of the Turkish bourgeoisie which, as we would expect, was rather amor­ phous in character and still far from maturity. Thus in the post-war years, even though this class was in power, it was undefined and lacked the confidence which a ruling class acquires only through expe­ rience. The class was fragmented as no single sector within it was strong enough to impose its will upon the rest. This fragmentation explains the failure of Turkish political parties to establish a working consensus during the next generation. It also explains the constant splintering of the major parties into factions, each representing nar­ rower, declining constituencies. In this climate o f socio-economic and political confusion which prevailed in Turkey after 1950, the army, acting as the self-proclaimed agent o f what remained o f the old apolitical state, intervened from time to time to break the political impasive between the parties. Under brief periods o f military tutelage the political structure was reconsti­ tuted and Turkish society continued to climb up the spiral o f capital­ ist development. The intervention of 1960 removed some of the obsta­ cles to industrialisation and created new institutions to accelerate the

the state and intervention in turkey

17

process. Ten years later in 1971, the armed forces intervened to curb the challenge from the labour movement and the left, a challenge the established system failed to resolve in the context o f democratic poli­ tics and institutions. In response to the political chaos which arose out of the worldwide economic crisis o f the seventies, the commanders of the armed forces intervened in September 1980. This time their aim was nothing less than the de-politicisation o f society and the restora­ tion of politics guided from above. Each intervention has had the effect o f weakening those forces necessary for the proper functioning o f pluralist politics and the strengthening of elements without a social base and therefore not responsible to anyone. At present (1981), it is not clear whether the new regime in Turkey is preparing the way to push Turkish society up the spiral or whether it is considering a change of direction. The odds are on continuity.

Ottoman Perceptions of the Capitulations 1800-1914

here was a general consensus among those Ottomans who gave any thought to the matter that the capitulations were grants of privileges made unilaterally by Ottoman sultans to various foreign powers and therefore capable of being withdrawn unilaterally. That was the argument the Sublime Porte used when the foreign embassies were notified o f the abrogation of the capitulations in a memorandum dated 9 September 1914. The M inister of Foreign Affairs (and grand vezir), Said Halim Paşa, noted: ‘The Imperial Ottoman Governm ent... had in former tinies determined in a special manner the rules to which foreigners coming to the Orient to trade there should be subject, and had communicated those rules to the Powers. Subsequently those rules, which the Sublime Porte had decreed entirely of its own accord, were interpreted as privileges, corroborated and extended by certain practices, and were maintained down to our own days under the name of ancient treaties (or C apitulations)...1

1

Foreign Relations o f the United States 1914, Washington, D .C ., 1092.

20

from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

The same line o f reasoning was adopted by historians o f the Republic. Thus İsmail Hami Danişmend, writing about the abrogation of the capitulations, states that ’... initially these privileges were bestowed upon a weak and poor Europe as a favour. But as Turkey became weak and Europe strong they became a nuisance for the state and assumed the form of violating its sovereignty. For that reason, the abrogation o f the Capitulations became the most important goal of the state’s foreign policy after the Tanzimat proclamation [of 1839].’2 The very term the Ottomans used to decribe the capitulationsimtiyazati ecnebiye or simply imtiyazat-m eans privileges, grants, or concessions for foreigners. For that is how they perceived the capitu­ lations even after they had been regulated by bilateral treaties, follow­ ing the signing of the Treaty o f Küçük Kaynarca with Russia in 1774.3 Yet as late as May 1908, Lord Hardinge, the Permanent Under­ secretary at the Foreign Office, was advising the British chargé d’af­ faires at Istanbul that ’The time will come when we and the French will have to tell the Sultan that it is not a privilege we are seeking but right.’45 There are strong historical grounds for the Ottoman interpre­ tation o f the capitulations as privileges granted to European mer­ chants, and later to states, by the Sultans.3 Thus traditionally, for the Ottomans the capitulations were more like a decree or edict than a treaty. They were written in this manner and therefore could not assume the form o f reciprocity. According to Pakahn, until the eigh­ teenth century the Ottoman state did not enter into a treaty relation­ ship with foreigners which would place it in any form o f obligation. The Sultan who ’bestowed privileges’ upon the foreigners believed that these privileges could be revoked whenever they wished. İnalcık agrees

2

Ismail Hami Danişmend, îzahlt Osmanlı Tarihi Kronolojisi, Istanbul, 1 9 6 1 ,4 :4 0 9 - 1 0 .

3

Halil İnalcık, ‘Imtiyazat’ in Encyclopedia o f İslam , 2nd ed., vol. 3 , hereafter EP, 1 178-95.

4

Hardinge to Block, 19 May 1 9 8 0 , quoted in Joseph Hellei; British Policy towards the Ottoman

Empire 1908-1914, London, 1 9 8 3 , 5. 5

İnalcık, El2; the article has a comprehensive bibliography on the capitulations.

ottom an perceptions of the capitulations 1800-1914 2 1

with this interpretation though he notes that while the covenant (abdtiame) was a unilateral and freely-made grant» the Sultan revoked it when he felt that the foreign power had broken the pledge o f ‘friend­ ship and sincere goodw ill.* The capitulations acquired a new character after 1683 when the Ottoman Empire began to weaken in relation to growing European Power: Privileges began to be granted as ‘an unveiled gesture o f reci­ procity for political assistance’ and the Sultans were forced to aban­ don the ‘valuable bargaining counter that new capitulations had to be negotiated at the beginning o f every new reign.’ There was now a tacit understanding that the capitulations would bring reciprocal advantage to the state» and if that failed to materialize the sultan could claim that the precondition of ‘friendship and sincerity had been broken.' As late as 1740, Ottoman officials could search the residence o f a foreigner protected by the capitulations if there was a suspicion that fugitive criminals or slaves were being harboured by the foreigner or that he was in possession o f smuggled goods.67 This Ottoman autonomy came to an end with the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca signed with Russia in 1774. This treaty, according to İnalcık, was a bilateral agreement which differed both in form and in legal character from the ahdnam es unilaterally granted in the past. N ot only did this treaty give freedom o f navigation to the Russian fleet in the Black Sea (article X I), but the Sublime Porte promised to allow ‘the M inister of the Imperial Court o f Russia to make, upon all occa­ sions, representations, as well in favour o f the new church ... to be constructed in the capital, as on behalf of its officiating ministers . . . . ’ (articles VI & X IV ). These articles made Catherine the Great virtual­ ly the protector o f the Greek Orthodox subjects o f the Sultan and pro­ vided Russia with opportunities and pretexts to interfere in the affairs of the Ottoman Empire whenever it saw fit. M oreover article IX gave 6

M ehm et Zeki Pakalm , Tarih D eyim leri ve Terimleri Sözlüğü, İstanbul, 1 9 7 1 , article

7

İnalcık, E f , 1 1 7 9 ff.

‘Kapitülasyon’, in vol. 2 ; and İnalcık, EP.

22

from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

interpreters o f the terms o f the treaty, the notorious dragomans who were often Ottoman subjects employed by the Russian embassy, a new status which not only placed them outside Ottoman law but, in time, made them virtual intermediaries between the embassy and the Porte. Within a short time, non-Muslim subjects o f the Sultan who bought such appointments ‘were excused from all Ottoman taxes and were entitled to pay the same low customs duties charged to foreigners under the various Capitulations treaties. Foreign consuls clearly abused this right by selling such appointments [berat] at considerable profit to Ottoman merchants wishing to escape the regulation and control o f the Sultan’s law s.* The Porte recognized the implications o f this treaty and attempted to save face by claiming reciprocal rights for the Sultan as Caliph, specifically the right to protect Muslim subjects of the Tsarina, Catherine the Great. The Porte even attempted to evade some o f the terms o f the treaty, evidently still regarding them as privileges granted to a friendly power. But under Russian protests the Porte was forced to recognize the treaty as a bilateral engagement.89 The second half o f the eighteenth century coincided with the growing commercial and industrial strength of Western Europe and the increasing penetration of the Ottoman economy. The Turks recog­ nized the advantage that the capitulations gave to foreign merchants and their Ottoman protégés who were acquiring the same privileges through consular intervention. Selim III, who came to the throne in 1789, took a number of measures to rectify the balance between Ottoman and foreign merchants. Apart from making efforts to curb the abuse o f the capitulations, he extended the same privileges to Ottoman merchants (Muslim and non-Muslim) engaged in foreign 8

Stenford Shaw, Between Old and New: the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Selim III Î 789-1807 , Cambridge, Mass.: 19 7 1 , 177-8; and J . C. Hurewitz (comp, and ed.) The M iddle East and

North Africa in World Politics, New Haven and London, 1 9 7 5 ,1 :1 8 9 - 9 1 ; see also his earlier anthology, Diplomacy in the N ear and Middle East: A Documentary Record t 1 535-1914, 2 vols, Princeton, N. J ., 1 9 56; and İnalcık, EP.

9

İnalcık, EP, 1186.

ottoman perceptions of the capitulations 1800-1914 2 3

and domestic trade; he also used state monopolies to gain an advan­ tage over the Europeans.101 Until the first decade of the nineteenth century, the Porte still per­ ceived the capitulations as agreements over which it exercised some con­ trol. The capitulations were regarded as reciprocal rights enjoyed equal­ ly by the two sides signing the agreements so that abuses could be elim­ inated. This became clear in the 1809 treaty signed by Great Britain and the Ottoman Empire during the Napoleonic Wars. Some of the articles o f this treaty bear quoting, for Britain came to see it as the basis of the capitulatory rights she now enjoyed in the Ottoman Empire. Article IV of the treaty read: ‘The Treaty o f Capitulations agreed upon in the Turkish year 1086 (AD 1675) ... shall continue to be observed and maintained as if they had suffered no interruption/ ‘In return of the indulgence and good treatment afforded by the Sublime Porte to English merchants ..., [read article V] England shall reciprocally extend every indulgence and friendly treatment to the flag, subjects, and merchants of the Sublime Porte... .* Custom tariffs were fixed at 3% ‘and the articles relating to the interior commerce, shall continue to be observed, as they are at present regulated, and to which England promised to conform’ (article VI). The Porte was permitted to appoint its own consuls to ‘the Dominions o f his Britannic Majesty where it shall be necessary to man­ age and superintend the affairs and interests of merchants of the Sublime Porte, and similar privileges and immunities to those granted to English Consuls resident in Ottoman Dominions, shall be duly afforded to the ‘Shahbenders’ of the Sublime Porte’ (article VIE).11 10

Shaw, Between O ld and New, 177-9.

11

Hurewitz, Diplomacy, 190; Bernard Lewis, ‘Beratli*, in EP. See also Margaret Hoell, T h e Ticaret Odası: Origins, Functions, and Activities o f the C hamber o f Commerce o f Istanbul, 1885-1899’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, Ohio State University, 1973, 13-14. The 1809 Treaty with Britian is neglected by historians and is not even mentioned by Linda Darling in her article 'Capitulations' in The O xford Encyclopedia o f the M odem Islamic World, ed. John Esposito, New York and O xford, 1995). In Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire: the Sublime Porte, 1789-1922, Princeton, N . J ., 1 9 8 0 , Carter Findley also noted: '... the Anglo-Ottoman Commercial Convention [of 1838]... marked the turning point at which the traditional system o f capitulations ... gave way to bilaterally negotiated commercial treaties ..., unaware o f the 1809 Treaty.*

2 4 from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

Far more significant than the principle o f reciprocity which this treaty accepted, was the recognition by Britain o f the abuse o f selling protégé status to Ottoman subjects. Thus article IX read: English Ambassadors and Consuls may supply themselves, accord­ ing to custom , with such Dragomans as they shall stand in need of: but as it has been mutually agreed upon, that the Sublime Porte shall not grant die ‘Berat" o f Dragoman in favour o f individuals who do not execute that duty in the place o f their destination, it is settled, in conform ity with this principle, that in future, the ‘B erat’ shall not be granted to any person o f the class o f tradesman o r banket; nor to any shopkeeper or m anufacturer in the public m arkets, or to anyone who is engaged in any m atter o f this description; nor shall English Consuls be named from among the subjects o f the Sublime Porte.

Article X simply crossed the t’s and dotted the i’s by stipulating that ‘English patents o f protection shall not be granted to dependents, or merchants who are subjects of the Sublime Porte, nor shall any passports be delivered to such persons, on the part o f Ambassadors or Consuls, without permission previously obtained from the Sublime Porte.’ By 1809, the Porte seems to have abandoned the economic high ground to the British, and by extension to Europe. W ith low tariffs there was no possibility of Ottoman merchants competing with Europeans. The issue now was to hold on to as much o f the state’s sov­ ereignty as possible. Here too, it may have been too late, for by 1808, İnalcık estimates that ‘Russia had enrolled about 120,000 Greeks as “protected persons'.'12 Moreover, treaties were only as good as the ability o f the Porte to enforce them and that became more and more difficult as the Ottoman Empire's political and diplomatic dependence on Europe increased. Given the internal crisis in the Ottoman Empire, marked by the struggle between the centre and the provincial notables, during the 12

İnalcık, Ef\ 1187.

ottoman perceptions of the capitulations «800-1914 2 5

first quarter o f the twentieth century, it is not surprising that the capit­ ulations did not enjoy top priority. In fact, as the Westernized bureau­ crats became more influential at the centre, they welcomed the eco­ nomic integration o f the empire into an ever-expanding European market. Thus, fourteen years before the 1838 Treaty, Mahmut II aban­ doned the privileges his predecessor Selim had granted Ottoman mer­ chants, the so-called Tüccar-ı Hayriye, making economic competition virtually impossible. The ‘Anglo-Turkish Commercial Convention’ of 1838 signed at Balti Liman on the Bosphorus was merely the logical conclusion o f this process. The state had already sacrificed its indige­ nous merchants; by sacrificing state monopolies and establishing free trade it was taking the logical step to allow landed interests, who were predominantly Muslim and who were expected to become the social basis for the newly emerging state, to accumulate wealth by selling, at the higher market prices, direcdy to European buyers. At the same time, the application o f this treaty to Egypt was designed to destroy the ever-growing power o f the Porte’s troublesome governor in Egypt, Mehmed Ali Paşa, who a few years earlier had threatened the very existence o f the Empire.13 The Ottoman reformers who carried out the administrative re­ ordering reorganization o f the empire between 1839 and 1876, known as the Tanzimat, may have believed in the benefits o f econom­ ic integration with Europe, even though that meant destroying the existing economic structure. But, at the same time, they wished to see the Ottoman Empire treated as an equal partner in the European sys­ tem; thus the reforms they introduced in 1839 and 1856 with the view to westernizing and secularizing the administrative and legal system were designed to bring the Ottoman regime in line with that o f other

13

For the 1838 Treaty see Charles Issawi (ed.), The Econom ic History o f the M iddle East 1800-

1914 , Chicago and London, 1966, 38-40. Musa Çadırcı, İ l Mahmut Döneminde (1808-1839) Avrupa ve Hayriye Tüccarları’ discusses the abandonment o f Muslim traders during the reign o f Mahmut IL It is published in Osman Okyar and Halil İnalcık (eds) Türkiye'nin Sosyal ve

Ekonom ik Tarihi 1071-1920 (Ankara, 1980), 23 7 -4 1 .

2 6 (ram empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

European states. In 1856, Ali Paşa, the grand vezir who represented the Porte at the Paris Peace Conference after the Crimean W aç viewed this as an accomplished fact. The Ottoman Empire, he noted, had been accepted as a member o f the Concert o f Europe. Therefore it ought not be treated according to the law o f nations in which the capitulations had no place and ought to be abolished. The Great Powers, perhaps somewhat embarrassed by Ali Paşa’s logic, agreed that he had a point but that this was not the appropriate time or place to dwell on it. The m atter they said, should be left to be discussed at a separate conference. But such a conference was never convened.14 In the second half o f the nineteenth century the capitulations came to be perceived as the symbol of Ottoman inferiority vis-à-vis Europe. It was not just the Great Powers-Britain, France, Russia, Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Italy-which enjoyed capitulatory rights, but even minor powers were quick to seize the opportunity. After Britain signed the Treaty o f 1838, such states as Sardinia, Sweden and Norway, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Prussia and the other signatories o f the Zollverein, Denmark, Tuscany, the Hanseatic Towns, Portugal, the Two Sicilies, Greece, and Brazil, signed similar treaties between the years 1838 and 1856. M exico, the M ecklenbeig Duchies, and Bavaria followed in 1 8 6 4 ,1 8 6 8 , and 1870.15 The Tanzimat statesmen continued to open up the economy to Europe, seeing no threat so long as the Powers respected the Porte’s sovereignty. Thus the Law o f 7 Safer 1284 (9 June 1867) permitted foreigners to own urban and rural property, except in the province of Hijaz, so long as they did so on the same conditions as Ottoman sub­ jects, that is to say, without applying the capitulations. This was a major Ottoman concession since land was the only sector o f the econ­ omy still dominated by Muslims. Opening this sector to foreign enter­ prise risked destroying this dominance. If European dominance in

14 15

İnalcık, EP, 118 7 -8 ; Pakalm, Tarih, 181. N ear East, 18 Sept. 19 1 4; 6 52-4.

ottoman perceptions of the capitulations 1800-1914 2 7

agriculture failed to materialize, that was because Turkish farm labour as too expensive and the Turkish peasant too proud and unruly to work on estates run by foreigners.16 Soon after this m ajor concession, which the French ambassador interpreted as ‘assuring capital the right to develop unlimited mineral, agricultural and forestry riches o f the Ottoman Empire’, Ali Paşa sent another memorandum to the Powers complaining about the abuses of the capitulations. While he recognized that the capitulations bore the character o f a treaty, he argued that the way they were abused was contrary not only to the ‘law o f nations' but also to the terms o f the capitulations themselves. He listed a number of specific abuses such as the status of ‘protected persons’, their exemption from taxes paid by Ottoman subjects, the extra-territorial status enjoyed by consuls, the difficulty in prosecuting foreign criminals since foreigners were not answerable to Ottoman justice, the interference o f consuls in Ottoman courts, and the dragomans’ claim to actually take part in a judicial decision.17 Ali Paşa attempted to curb what was perhaps the principal abuse o f the capitulation, the sale by consuls o f protégé status to Ottoman subjects. In 1869, a law was passed creating Ottoman citi­ zenship (tabiiyet) thereby making it unnecessary and illegal for Ottomans to seek the citizenship (or protection) of another state. This was in fact a meaningless exercise since few people outside the imme­ diate circle o f the ruling class identified with the newly-emerging state and were therefore largely unaware o f the concept of ‘citizenship’. M ost subjects o f the Sultan identified with their religious community, the m illet, and the concept of Ottomanism made little headway dur­ ing the next half century. Even after the restoration of the constitution in 1908, a Greek member o f the Ottoman Assembly felt quite com­ 16

İnalcık, EP, 1 1 8 8 ; N ear East, ibid.; and Ali Tosun Ancanli, T h e Role o f the State in the Social and Economic Transformation o f the Ottoman Empire 1807-1918*, unpublished Ph.D thesis, Harvard University, 1976.

17

İnalcık, EP.

28

from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem ttafcey

fortable in claiming: ‘I am as Ottoman as the [Anglo-French] Ottoman Bank*! The embassies o f the Great Powers refused to respect the new law and continued to provide protection and citizenship to Ottoman subjects. Nevertheless, the Porte created a bureaucratic apparatus within the Foreign M inistry to enforce this law, though not with any great success.1* The Ottomans were thoroughly demoralized by their failure to make any headway on the question o f equal treatment vis-à-vis the West. In fact, the situation became worse in the age o f imperialism when the European Powers adopted an attitude o f racial and moral superiority towards the Turks, and justified die capitulations on the grounds that Europeans simply could not live under Turkish-Islamic law. This attitude cut the ground from under the feet o f the reformers who had promised equality at die cost o f westernizing the entire sys­ tem. In the 1860s, die Young Ottomans, who spoke for the social stra­ ta which had paid die price o f increased subservience to the West, had begun to criticize the reformers and their reforms. The setbacks o f the seventies, marked by the rebellion in the Balkans in 1875, brought the crisis to a head. The Great Powers held a conference in Istanbul in December 1876 to force reform on the Sublime Porte; Ottoman dele­ gates were not even permitted to participate in the proceedings. Furthermore, defeat in the Russo-Turkish war o f 1877/78, weakened the Westemizers even more and strengthened the xenophobic forces around the Sultan. Sultan Abdülhamid II, who came to the throne in 1876 and was deposed in April 1909, was convinced that the policy o f the Tanzimat statesmen o f total reliance on Britain had proved a failure. He there­ fore attempted to neutralize British influence by cultivating Germany. He met with some success in balancing Anglo-French influence on the Bosphorus as Germany, a latecomer to the imperial game, was quick to gain a foothold in the Ottoman Empire. He even persuaded the18 18

Findley, Bureaucratic Reform , 188 and 317-19.

ottom an perceptions of the capitulations 1800-1914 2 9

Kaiser to abolish the capitulations and die latter promised to do so if the other Great Powers went along. But that would prove to be impos­ sible as the Kaiser must have well known. The capitulatory rights of the Powers were becoming more burdensome as foreign penetraton of the Ottoman economy deepened during the last quarter o f the nine­ teenth century. The Powers began to send consuls to the provinces to protect the commercial and legal interests o f their merchants, as well as the growing activity o f missionaries. The consuls as a matter of course acted with the authority o f the capitulations. As a result o f the application o f the capitulations in die provinces, the power o f Ottoman administration deteriorated rapidly. Engin Akarli, a histori­ an o f this period, notes: The consuls' involvem ent in provincial m atters significantly under­ mined the near-absolute power o f the governors. Consuls took the local disputes to the Am bassadors in Istanbul. The Ambassadors not only laid the individual incidents before the central govern­ m ent, but they also demanded regulation o f the governors' author­ ity ... As a result o f these m easures, governorships became less desirable positions for senior O ttom an o fficals, w hile the power o f the incum bents o f the central offices increased simultaneously. Provinces began to be viewed a places o f ex ile ...19

If Abdülhamid did little to undermine the abuses of the capitu­ lations, it was not for lack of trying. Convinced that the high bureau­ crats at the Sublime Porte, such men as Kamil Paşa, were intimidated by the European embassies and therefore succumbed to their slightest pressure, he often acted against the Porte’s advice. Thus when the French and German embassies demanded the dismissal of customs off­ icals who had confiscated jewellery imported illegally by foreign post offices, the bureaucrats were willing to acquiesce to their demands.

19

Engin Akarli, ‘The Problems o f External Pressures, Power Struggles, and Budgetary Deficits in Ottoman Politics under Abdülhamid II (1 8 7 6 -1 9 0 9 ): Origins and Solutions’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, Princeton University, 1 976, 90.

30 from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

Abdülhamid, however; refused to give his consent. He argued that such a concession ‘would constitute a precedent for yet another capitulato­ ry right, throwing the administration of the customs into chaos.’20 During Abdülhamid’s reign, the Ottoman attitude towards the capitulations changed dramatically: they came to be seen not merely as a violation o f sovereignty but as a major barrier to economic reform and progress. The Tanzimat statesmen had believed that the open-door liberal economic policies would bring benefits to the economy from a new division of labour and from being part o f a world market. They had therefore agreed o abandon all protective measures including the right to raise tariffs unilaterally. With the rise of German economic power under the protectionist ideas of the political economist, Friedrich List (1789-1846), there emerged a school o f thought which promoted protectionism as the only path to economic development. Moreover, it did not require a mastery o f economic theory to understand that the 4% tarifi on imports to which the Porte had agreed was far too low, and that an additional 3% would help to raise badly needed revenues for a treasury heading for bankruptcy. But the Powers refused to concede to the Porte’s request, at least for the next 26 years; negotiations were opened in 1881 and finally in 1907 the Powers agreed to the 3% increase on condition that the increase in revenue be placed under the control o f the Ottoman Public Debt, 25% to pay the Ottoman debt and the rest to finance reforms in Macedonia proposed by the Powers. In 1901, in the midst of what must have seemed to him to be unending negotiations, Abdülhamid lamented on the fate o f his regime: W hat horrible injustice this is! T he Europeans deny us the rights that they so readily acknow ledge among them selves. We have to improve our financial situation rapidly. We w ant to raise im port duties... T h at is our m anifest right. N o one can argue against that. Yet the am bassadors are opposed. We have to blush for having been subjected to this kind o f injustice.21 20

Ibid, 128.

21

Ibid, 178, n. 60.

ottoman perceptions of the capitulations 1800*1914 3 1

By the end o f the nineteenth century, the Ottoman state had lost virtually all its sovereignty as far as the West was concerned. The intelligentsia to which such writers as Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu and Halid Ziya Uşaklıgil belonged felt totally demoralized by the hold o f the capitulations. The ten-year old Yakup Kadri remembered wanting to report to the police European travellers who were beat­ ing some Turkish children. His father' lament: 'Son, what can the police do against foreigners?’ had a chilling effect. ‘On hearing these words I suddenly aged ten years. A melancholic earnestness seized me and, I believe, since that day national pride began to flow [in my veins].’22 Until the constitutional revolution o f 1908 there was a general mood o f despair among the Muslims of the Ottoman Empire, and the regime o f the capitulations was largely responsible for creating this mood. But the revolution changed this mood to one of optimism about the empire’s future. It is possible to explain this radical change o f mood by the success o f Japan in catching up with the West, espe­ cially after defeating Russia in 1905, and the effect this victory had on awakening Asia as a whole and some Turks in particular. Abdülhamid had been fascinated by Japan’s success and invited two delegations to visit Istanbul in 1880 and 1886. In 1891, he sent a mission under Admiral Osman Paşa which ended in disaster with the sinking of the Ertuğrul on its return voyage. The Turks were even more impressed when the British signed an alliance with Japan in 1902 according equal status to an Asian power in an age marked by blatant racial prejudice legitimized by the doctrine o f social Darwinism. The Unionists, members o f the Committee o f Union and Progress (CUP), the secret organization behind the constitutional

22

Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu, Atatürk, İstanbul, I 9 6 0 , 10. About İzmir, Halid Ziya Uşaklıgil wrote: ‘In this area [of the İzmir fruit market] swarmed people o f all nations and all those whose origins were unknown but who used to be known to the residents o f İzmir. These people car­ ried various papers o f identification, as if they were Europeans, but [they] consisted o f Greeks, Armenians, and especially Jew s . . . . ’ quoted in Charles Issawi, Econom ic History, 72-3.

32

from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

movement, soon came to see their Turkey as ‘the Japan o f die Near East.’ As early as November 1908, they sent an unofficial delegation to London to see Sir Edward Grey and Sir Charles Hardinge with the offer o f an alliance. When Sir Edward politely turned down their pro­ posal, pointing out that the alliance with Japan ‘was limited to certain distant questions in the Far East', they noted that Turkey enjoyed a similar status in thé Near East.23 Given that self-perception, the Unionists were unlikely to continue to abide by the demeaning regime o f the capitulations. The restoration o f the constitution was seen only as the first political step in a revolution designed to alter the social and econom­ ic structure o f the empire. But litde could be achieved while the capit­ ulations were in place since they restricted the government's sover­ eignty and freedom o f action at every turn. They had to go. As early as August 1908, the press o f the capital, uncensored and free after a generation o f Hamidian autocracy, was discussing the capitulations and the position o f foreigners in constitutional Turkey. There was a naive belief that the Powers, especially constitutional Britain and France, would appreciate the effort the Turks were mak­ ing to emulate Europe’s example in establishing a liberal, constitu­ tional government. But, far from being sympathetic, the representa­ tives of the Powers in Istanbul, especially the newly-arrived British ambassador were hostile to Unionist am bitions. Describing the atmos­ phere prevailing in the months after the restoration of the constitution, Sir Gerard Lowther wrote: ‘A general nationalist feeling has permeat­ ed all ranks, amounting often to violent chauvinism, and a desire to throw o ff the yoke o f the capitulations, and to rank in this respect as a European Power.’24

23

Grey to Lowthei; private con., London, 13 Nov. 1 9 0 8 , F O 800/185A , quoted in Feroz Ahmad, ‘G reat Britain’s Relations with the Young Turks 1 9 0 8 -1 9 1 4 ’, Middle Eastern Studies, 2(4) July

24

19 6 6 , 3 09. Annual Report 1 9 0 9 , p. 7 enclosure in Low ther to Grey, no. 5 5 co n ., Constantinople 31 Jan . 19 1 0 , FO 371/1002/4235.

ottom an perceptions of the capitulations 1800-1914 3 3

Lowther was absolutely right about the Unionists’ ‘desire to throw off the yoke o f the capitulations, and to rank in this respect as a European Power* That feeling became even stronger in October 1908 that Europe immediately abandon the capitulations and recog­ nize Turkey as an equal. It became clear that Europe used the capitu­ lations as a means o f holding back the Turks from making progress and remaining outside Europe. Ziya Gökalp, one o f the principal nationalist ideologues, noted bitterly: *... A nation condemned to every political interference by Capitulations is meant to be a nation outside European civilization. Japan is accepted as a European Power, but we are still regarded as an Asiatic nation ... .’2S26 Gökalp’s perception of the capitulations was on the mark. Interference in Turkish affairs was justified on the grounds that the Ottoman Empire was as yet uncivilized because it was Islamic, and Europeans (and their clients) could not therefore be governed by her laws. Andrew Ryan, dragoman at the British embassy, said as much in a letter dated 16 September 1909. He wrote: ‘If all goes well with the Constitution, and Turkey regenerates herself on European lines, we (the dragomans) are bound to go sooner or later, as no civilized European Government would tolerate a class o f foreign officials whose business it was to meddle directly in all their public offices ... . These treaties [capitulations] must go also, if Turkey becomes truly civilized... .’M In his memoirs, Ryan recounts the struggle between the Porte and the embassies in which every issue raised was contested bitterly: There were num erous points o f dispute between the Porte and the foreign powers regarding the scope o f the capitulatory privileges for foreigners. The principles involved were discussed a t the high­ est diplom atic le v e l... fundam ental cause o f quarrel was the status o f the dragom an in the courts he attended. As it turned a good deal 25

Ziya G ökalp quoted in Niyazi Berke* (tr. and ed.), Turkish Nationalism and Western

26

Andrew Ryan, The Last o f the Dragomans, London, 1 9 5 1 ,6 8 *9 .

Chnliiation: Selected Essays o f Ziya G ökalp (New York, 1 959), 2 7 7 .

34

from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

on the interpretation o f tw o w ords in a seventeenth-century Turkish tex t, it can easily be imagined how difficult it was to agree on the question w hether he was a judge, indeed a judge w ith a veto, as we m aintained, or merely an official looker-on, as the Turks contended. To us it seemed essential to the security o f our nation­ als to uphold their privileges even in the sm allest cases ... in these m atters the capitulatory powers made com m on cause, w hatever their differences in other spheres. Senior dragom ans m et regularly a t short intervals to discuss m atters o f com m on in terest. . . . We were no less tenacious o f our fiscal than our judicial privi­ leges. Concessions were sometimes made to the Turks, but only subject to the principle that no new taxes could be enforced w ith­ out our co n se n t. . . . It was no wonder that the Turks resented the disabilities imposed upon them .27

The Unionists faced an uphill struggle as the embassies were unwilling to make any concessions. The embassies and the Powers used all means available to sabotage Unionist efforts to undermine their absolute hegemony. The British, with the French in tow, hoped to achieve this by having the liberals led by Kamil Paşa lead the gov­ ernment. The Liberals were content to adopt a policy of reliance on Britain, with no more than a token attempt to challenge the capitula­ tions. During the period o f political turmoil following the Unionist coup d’état of January 1913, Kamil Paşa went so far as to invite the British to assume indirect control as they had in Egypt. Reporting his conversation with Kamil to Grey, Lord Kitchener the British Agent in Egypt, wrote: ‘... his Highness expressed the wish that you might give your consideration to the question whether some adequate foreign control might not he established in regard to the administration in Turkey. Such a course was, in his opinion, the only means o f preserv­ ing Turkey from extinction, and he would be very glad to undertake the task. He added that it would be necessary for England and the Powers o f the Entente to impose proper foreign control, as he could

27

Ibid, 34-5.

ottoman perceptions of the capitulations 1800-1914 3 5

not undertake to introduce it himself. Were they, however to adopt such a policy he would gladly carry it out.*28 Even while they were not in office between 1908 and 1913, the Unionists enjoyed the prestige that came from pressing the govern­ ment to challenge the capitulations. The regular discussion o f this issue in the press made it a general concern o f an urban population which was daily becoming more politicized. Thus the foreign post offices came under attack when the government began to reorganize Ottoman postal services. The Ministry of Posts was created on 23 July 1909, the first anniversary o f the revolution, so that this matter became the concern of the cabinet. Nail Bey, a prominent Unionist who spoke on the occasion, denounced the foreign post offices as an infringement o f Turkish sovereignty and called for efficiency in the Ottoman postal service so that they could be abolished.29 In August, M . Sterpin was appointed director-general of posts and given the task o f reorginazing the service. He was chosen because he was a Belgian citizen and his country did not have its own post office in Istanbul. However his reforms did not lead the Powers to surrender their priv­ ileges! Nevertheless, the Porte continued to whittle away at everything that violated its sovereignty. Foreigner lawyers practising in Turkey came under attack in August 1909 with a new law designed to restrict their activities. The new Law on the Press and Printing Presses, also passed in August 1909, asked foreigners engaged in these professions to denounce their capitulatory privileges and to abide by the Press Law as applied to all Ottoman citizens. But when the British Foreign Office librarian examined the new law against the text of the 1865 law which was being revised, he found that:

28

Feroz Ahmad, The Young Turks: the Committee o f Union and Progress in Turkish Politics

Î 908-191 4, O xford, 1 9 69, 127; and Block to Hardinge, Constantinople 13 Jan. 1 9 0 9 , FO 371/762/2419. 29

The Istanbul press, 2 3 , 2 4 July 1909; and Lowther to Grey, no. 5 9 4 con., Therapia 26 July 1 9 0 9 , FO 371/779/28925.

3 6 from empire to republic: essays on the late ottom an empire and m odem turkey

the treaty engagem ents... are w ith G reat B ritain, not w ith its indi­ vidual subjects. Consequently it is not com petent for individual British subjects to denounce the benefits o f these engagem ents; and any attem pt by the Porte to exercise any crim inal jurisdiction over British subjects licensed to publish newspapers in Turkey, by their consent, in a m anner different from th at prescribed by the C apitulations, would be contrary to the Treaty engagements o f Turkey with this country.30

This Foreign Office minute shows quite clearly how the inter­ pretation of past engagements by the Powers tied the hands of Ottoman reformers. The Porte’s freedom of action, limited as it was, was curtailed even more by an empty treasury. When the government sought to meet its financial needs by seeking a 4% increase in customs tariffs, the Powers again temporized as they had with Abdülhamid. Money soon became the most convenient weapon for keeping the Turks in line. As early as January 1909 Sir Adam Block, a former First Dragoman at the British embassy and later the British president of the Public Debt, advised Whitehall to keep the Turks ’short of money'. T still maintain that until the Turks are willing to listen to advice with regard to their financial administration, and until they show to our satisfaction that they have entered seriously on the path o f reform in this respect, they should be kept short o f money.’31 The Unionists, who came from too low a social stratum to have had any experience o f high diplomacy, were taken aback by the cyni­ cism o f the Great Powers. They had expected a helping hand from Europe; instead they seemed to be receiving nothing but kicks. But they persevered with the reforms and, at the same time tried to call in Japan and ‘the New World’ to balance the power o f the old. The Istan­ bul press suggested inviting Japanese not European advisers to reor­

30

The F. O . minute is attached to Lowther to Grey, no. 655 con., Therapia 11 Aug. 1 909, FO

31

Block to Hardinge (as in note 28 above). For the politics o f the 19 1 0 loan, see Ahmad, Young

371/779/30768.

Turks, 7 2 and 75 ff.

ottoman perceptions of the capitulations 1800-1914 3 7

ganize the administration. The articles pointed to a friendship estab­ lished under Abdiilhamid, and the fact that the Japanese had reorga­ nized their own system with success. Moreover, a Japanese adviser was less likely to push his country's interest than a European. It is not clear why Japanese advisers were not invited in fact. Perhaps the Powers disapproved o f the idea; Sir Charles Hardinge had commented quite frankly on Lowther’s dispatch: ‘The idea would be deeply resented by several o f the ‘Great Powers.' Grey had noted: ‘The effect upon the German Emperor would be very great.’32 The Porte also invited the Japanese government to establish an embassy in Istanbul without seeking the privileges of the capitulations. Japan recognized Turkey’s right to recover her sovereignty but she was unwilling to conclude any treaty for accomplishing this end as that would embarrass other Powers.33 A year later, when the Washington government was approached by the Porte on the question o f abolishing the capitulations, the Secretary o f State replied that his government would consider the pro­ posal ‘only if the railway concession in Anatolia [the Chester Project] were granted to a U.S. citizen’. But the Turks refused to bargain, asserting ‘that the treatment o f commercial questions under the same head as political ones is contrary to the fixed policy o f the Porte.’34 Judging by the entries in the diaries o f Mehmed Cavid, a com­ mitted but moderate Unionist and an expert on the economy, the Unionists were both frustrated and disgusted by the cynicism o f the embassies. The educated and cosmopolitan Cavid often met diplomats in order to sound them out on various issues and found them mosdy unhelpful. The Unionists were never totally free o f external problems and

32

See F. O . Comments in Lowther to Grey, no. 5 4 6 con., Therapia 6 Sept. 1908, FO 371/559/31790.

33

The Times, 13 and 17 M arch 1 909, and British comments in FO 371/781/37614.

34

Bryce to Grey, nos 15 and 17, tel. con., Washington 15 and 3 0 April 1910, in FO 371/781/12897 and 1 4 910.

38 from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

so less able to give their full attention to the capitulations. After Bulgaria’s declaration o f her independence and Austria’s annexation o f Bosnia and Herzegovina (1908) came the question o f Crete (1909) and the insurrection in Albania (1910). The war with Italy (1911) and the Balkan War (1912-13) almost destroyed the CUP politically. The demoralization o f Kamil Paşa's government and his willingness to surrender Edime to Bulgaria provided the Unionists with the opportunity to recoup their political fortunes. They ousted the Kamil cabinet on 23 January 1913 and for the first time began to exercise power directly. One o f the first acts o f the new government was to open nego­ tiations with the Great Powers for the evennual abolition of the capit­ ulations. The past five years had taught them that they would have to be patient and move step by step; the Powers were not about to abol­ ish the unequal treaties at one stroke. Thus they began by asking only for a 4% increase in customs dues, the right to apply an income tax on foreigners, and the abolition o f the foreign post offices. Meanwhile, they also requested that a commission of lawyers be formed to con­ sider the complete abolition of the capitulations.35 At the same time, the Unionist government under Mahmut Şevket Paşa opened bilateral talks with each of the European Powers with offers o f economic concessions in return for concessions on the capitulations. The Unionists had abandoned the ‘fixed policy’ o f treat­ ing commercial questions under the same head as political ones. As a result o f negotiations with the French government, the Porte agreed to give France the concession to build some o f the railway lines in north­ eastern Anatolia, and harbours on the Black Sea and the Syrian coast. In return, France agreed to make a loan to the treasury as well as cer­ tain concessions on the capitulations. Cavid, who was finance minis­ ter and who personally conducted the negotiations in Paris, enumer­ ated to Istanbul (19 September 1913) the advantages which the agree35

British documents on the negotiations o f M ay 1913 are cited in İnalcık, EP, 1188.

ottoman perceptions of the capitulations 1800-1914

39

ment would secure for Turkey. Apart from the loan o f £28 million sterling to be issued as soon as peace had been established with the Balkan states, the Porte would be allowed to tax French subjects resid­ ing in the empire; it would also be permitted to establish monopolies on such goods as cigarette paper, playing cards, and salt. But before they could be implemented, these concessions would need the consent of the other Powers. The Powers gave nothing away in the negotiations which con­ tinued into 1914. The Unionists had no choice but to settle for what­ ever they could get and Cavid was not as happy with the outcome as he appeared in his public pronouncements. İbrahim Hakkı the ex­ grand vezir who conducted the negotiations in London, did no bettet: Alwyn Parket; one o f the Foreign Office experts on the Ottoman Empire, and who signed the agreement with Hakkı Paşa on 24 July 1914, was delighted with the outcome from Britain’s point o f view. He thought it was ‘a great boon for the Ottomans too'. He noted that Turkey has for the first time secured a large and certain prospect of financial assistance for the development of her own resources.’ But the Unionists were not very pleased with the outcome. Cavid let it be known that what the Porte really wanted was not just a free hand in the question o f the Customs administration but complete economic independence. The Egyptian prince, Said Halim, who became grand vezir after Şevket Paşa’s assassination in June 1913, informed Beaumont, the British chargé d’affaires, that the situation o f the Porte having to go around ’begging permission’ to alter various financial arrangements was ’intolerable.’36 Had the World War not broken out in August 1914, the Unionists would have had to settle for these arrangements, however intolerable they found them. But they saw the war as an opportunity to squeeze concessions from all the belligerents with the promise of neutrality. Soon after they signed the secret treaty with Germany on 2 36

H ello; British Policy , 95.

40

from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

August, the government sent Cemal Paşa to see Sir Louis M allet, the British ambassador with proposals for a defence treaty with each of the Entente Powers. Cemal also asked that the capitulations be abol­ ished, that the two Ottoman ships seized by the British government be returned immediately, that Britain agree not to interfere in the internal affairs of the Ottoman Empire, and that western Thrace be restored to Turkey in the event that Bulgaria joined Germany. M allet may have found these proposals rather harsh, like 'terms imposed by a victorious enemy’, he noted. For the Unionists they were the bare essentials for restoring Turkish sovereignty and self-respect. Even the moderate Cavid, who discussed with Cemal the latter’s con­ versation with M allet, found 'nothing unacceptable in the things we asked for’. He was surprised that the British were still discussing the economic capitulations in terms o f modifying the trade convention of 1838 while Cemal was proposing that such capitulations be totally scrapped. As for the legal capitulations, Cavid was convinced that ‘this problem was complicated by the issue o f Islam and Christianity’.37 Only after the Triple Entente refused to take any action regard­ ing the capitulations until the end o f the war, did the cabinet begin to consider unilateral action. Commenting on the joint declaration of the Entente ambassadors, Cavid noted in his dairy: 'This declaration is totally inadequate. Everything is put off to the future.’ Talat was more better; he complained to Ambassador Morgenthau: 'They promised that we should not be dismembered after the Balkan wars and see what happened to European Turkey then.’38 On 23 August, the cabi­ net decided to send a note to all the Powers announcing the unilater­ al abrogation of the capituations. Such a note was duly delivered on 9 September and it came into effect on 1 October, marking the end of the capitulations for the course o f the wan39 37

Ibid., 138. see also Mehmet Cavit, ‘Meşrutiyet Devrine Ait Cavit Bey’in Hatıraları’, diary entry

38

Cavit, ‘Meşrutiyet*, dairy entry for 17 Aug. 1 9 14, Tanin, 2 9 O ct. 1944.

39

The Note o f September 1 0 ,1 9 1 4 abrogating the capitulations and presented to the Secretary o f

for 7 Aug. 1 9 1 4 , Tanin, 2 9 O ct. 1944.

State by Ahmed Rüstern Bey de Bilinski, the Ottom an ambassador in Washington, is worth

ottoman perceptions of the capitulations 1800-1914

İ4I

The Ottoman state exercised full sovereignty throughout the w ar But after signing the armistice in October 1918, Britain and France wanted to impose the capitulations on the defeated sultan’s government. But they failed to do so because the Nationalists rejected the dictated Treaty o f Sèvres and renegotiated the peace treaty at Lausanne in 1923 where they refused to accept the restoration of the capitulations. I have mainly discussed the Ottoman élite’s perception o f the capitulations because until 1908 they were the only people who were involved with the issue. But after 1908 the politics in the empire changed dramatically because the urban population was now involved in a systematic way by all those competing for power Censorship of the press was abolished and all the parties-M uslim and non-Muslim, Liberals, Islamists, and Unionists-published their own papers so as to publicize their views. Even the embassies subsidized papers in the cap­ ital, and perhaps in other cities as well. It is therefore possible to speak o f an emerging public opinion during these years. The capitulations were a constant theme discussed in the press of the day. The Unionist press in particular printed numerous articles which kept their readers informed o f the adverse effect o f these treaties and all the efforts being made to abolish them. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Muslim population came to see the capitulations as the principal means by which the Europeans and their non-Muslim allies kept the Muslims in a strait-jacket with absolutely no room to manoeuvre. The events of the years 1908-1914 were so traumatic that the Muslims came to feel that they were embattled and under constant quoting in full. It read: ‘Sir: I have the honor to inform you that by Imperial irade the Ottoman Government has abrogated as from the first o f O ctober next the conventions known as the capitulations restricting the sovereignty o f Turkey in her relations with certain powers. All priv­ ileges and immunities accessory to these conventions or issuing therefrom are equally repealed. Having thus freed itself from what was an intolerable obstacle to all progress in the empire, the Imperial Government has adopted as basis o f its relations with the other powers the general principle o f international law. (Signed) A. Rustem.* See Foreign Relations o f the United States

1914 ,1 0 9 0 . The best place to follow the celebrations in Istanbul and the empire is the press o f the period.

4 2 from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

threat o f dismemberment; in fact, the agreements of 1914 that the Porte made with Britain, France, and Germany suggest that the empire had been virtually partitioned into economic spheres o f influence. That is why the unilateral abrogation o f the capitulations was greeted by the Muslims with such enthusiasm, as though their country had been finally liberated. The day after the Note was delivered, 10 September, became a day o f celebration, as important as Constitution Day, observed on 23 July. People decorated their shops and houses with flags; the guilds and associations demonstrated in support and marched through the streets with musical bands to the homes o f ministers. Ships on die Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, along with government buildings, were also decorated and illuminated at night. The press hailed 9 September as the day o f freedom and independence. The CUP orga­ nized meetings in the capital and in provincial towns in support o f the government. Telegrams poured in from towns throughout the empire congratulating the government. But it was the press which expressed the popular perception o f the hated treaties and the sense o f hope and relief now that they had been abolished. The editorial in Tanin of 10 September written by Hüseyin Cahid, the prominent Unionist, cap­ tured the state o f mind of the Muslim population. It therefore bears quoting at some length: At last we are delivered! T h at is the sigh o f relief th at w ill com e from the lips o f all O ttom ans w ho, after reading the official procla­ m ation o f the Governm ent, can breathe easy in the assurance o f full liberty. Yes, we are freed! Freed today from the nightm are and calam i­ ty th at year by year grew darker through the ages, and daily stained anew the honour and dignity o f O ttom anism and th at weighed us down so th at we could scarcely breathe. So, as we see but tw o dates, equal in glory-one when a simple tribal ch ief from Turkestan founded one o f the greatest em pires o f the w orld, and the other day on w hich the age-long bonds o f our slavery were bro­ ken.

ottoman perceptions o f the capitulations 1800-1914

43

The C apitulations! W henever the O ttom ans who love their country and wish to see it free and independent, exalted and glori­ ous, heard this w ord, their eyes were clouded and they involuntar­ ily hung their heads in shame. The C apitulations were to us an out­ rage and a hum iliation, and the source o f our m ost terrible misery, at a tim e when all other nations were moving ahead. The tw enti­ eth century w hich had abolished slavery in all parts o f the w orld, even among savage people, had not suppressed the capitulations. The Turk was a tyrant, an oppressor he knew nothing o f right and justice. The Turk had no conscience, he was hostile to civiliza­ tio n , he understood nothing, his heart was indifferent to human sentim ents. Turkey was the legitim ate and natural property o f the civilized W est that could exploit it as it pleased; its inhabitants were in the eyes o f the Europeans exploitable and only fit to be made to w ork as hard as possible. Yes citizens, we Turks had to subm it to all this, though our only fault was that our ancestors were hos­ pitable to our guests. W hile we groaned under these calam ities, when we turned at tim es to beg for mercy, our supplications, which showed th at we had begun to recognize our honour and dignity, were met by new oppressions. Every tim e we raised our heads, we received a blow ; every tim e we tried to stand erect we received a kick. Such was the lo t o f the Turks! W hile in their own countries their own citizens coveted the bread o f their brothers and the poor started revolutions to secure a larger part o f the riches o f the wealthy, we ourselves were not allowed to aspire to any part o f the riches stolen from our country. W hile in their countries king and coachm an are equal before the law, here an O ttom an vizir was inferior to a foreigner’s servant. We were doing all we could to help any W esterner who cam e to our land; the incom e o f all the taxes paid by this poor nation went to ensure his w ell-being. O n his part, he had no regard for this country, paid no taxes, and found fault w ith our law courts. Som etim es, there were attacks on our citizens and our offi­ cials, attacks that made our blood boil. But we could do nothing; for there were the C apitulations. The patriots that wanted Turkey to be great succeeded by the revolution o f 2 3 July [1908] in saving it from despotism but not from European oppression. But today! Today we are happy because the Governm ent has erased th at ancient black stain.

4 4 from

empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

H enceforth we are free, we can labour and progress like the rest o f m ankind. H enceforth, the European w ill pay taxes as we do; he w ill be am enable to the same law cou rts; in short, we can hence­ forth say th at we to o are m en! The date th at m arks the ending o f the system o f C apitulations should be celebrated equally w ith 2 3 July. O ur sons m ust keep the day, and always remember th at their fathers, on Septem ber 9th , finally em ancipated the fatherland. Long live free Turkey!

N ot all Ottoman subjects welcomed the suppression o f the capitulations. The Christian communities were most apprehensive about having to live henceforth without foreign protection and its privileges. Ever since the revolution o f 1908, the Porte had begun to curb the privileges o f the non-Muslim communities. Just as the foreign ministry insisted on dealing directly with the ambassadors instead of their dragomans, the grand vezir refused to deal with the Patriarchs, who were told to take their complaints to the Ministry o f Justice. The Christians had at first welcomed the constitution but soon found that some of the obligations of the new regime were irksome. Many of them did not want to serve in the army and preferred to buy their way out by paying a special tax. But when they found that it was cheaper to emigrate to America and they return to the Ottoman Empire as American citizens with all the privileges that US citizenship bestowed, they began to leave in substantial numbers. For such people the psy­ chological effect o f the suppression o f their privileges was traumatic. Their apprehension found expression in their newspapers. The Istan­ bul paper Tasvir-i E fkâr o f 16 September observed that the Note o f 9 September had provoked a reaction among Ottoman Christians very different from that among most Ottomans, that is to say the Muslims. They seemed bewildered and pessimistic about the future, as though it would no longer be possible to live in Turkey. The paper took note of their concerns and tried to calm them by claiming that they were exag­ gerating the effects that the end o f the capitulations would have on their lives.

The Late Ottoman Empire*

he meeting at Reval between King Edward VII and Tsar Nicholas II in June 1908 suggested to Turkish minds that the two great antagonists of the Eastern Question might be burying their differences and reaching agreement to dismember the Ottoman Empire.1 The fear of dismemberment was never far from Turkish thoughts, especially after the Congress o f Berlin in 1878. There the Great Powers aban­ doned the principles o f maintaining the integrity o f the Ottoman Empire and non-interference in its internal affairs - principles they had

T

adopted at the Paris Congress in 1856.*12 At Berlin, the Ottoman Empire not only lost territory, it was also forced to reconcile itself to foreign intervention, ostensibly to supervise reform on behalf on the Porte’s non-Muslim subjects though more usually to further the inter­ ests of one Power or the other That encouraged nationalism and sep­ (*)

In M arian Kent (ed.), The Great Pouters and the End o f the Ottoman Empire, (George Allen & Unwin, London, 1984).

1

Ernest Ramsam; Jr., The Young Turks: Prelude to the Revolution o f 1908 , Princeton, N J, 1957,

2

Enver Ziya Karal, Osmanlt Tarihi, vol. VIII, Ankara, 1 962, p. 7 8; see also M . S. Anderson, The

pp. 133-4.

Eastern Question 1774-1923 , London, 1966, p. 143.

4 6 from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and modem turkey

aratism among subject peoples and created an explosive situation for the Porte. It may therefore be argued that the Powers were responsi­ ble for hastening the collapse of the Empire if only because they exploited a situation not o f their making. The Ottoman Empire, like the other multi-national, multi-reli­ gious empires, had become an anachronism in a Europe dominated by nation states. Its rulers tried to meet the challenges of industrial capital­ ism and a rapidly emerging world market by reforming their own state and society. If they failed, they were not alone. A far more homogenous Chinese empire succumbed to the same challenges, as did the empires of Austria-Hungary and Tsarist Russia. It seems as though reform alone could not stave off the fatal day of final destruction, and none of the rul­ ing classes, least of all the Ottoman, could go beyond reform to the restructuring o f society; only the Bolsheviks did that after they seized power and therefore still had an ‘empire’, albeit in a new form. Nevertheless, the Ottoman Turks tried till the very end to reform and struggle for survival. Ultimately they were forced to accept the inevitable; to abandon the idea of empire and settle for a national republic. The end o f the Ottoman Empire ought not to be any cause for surprise; the puzzle is that it survived as long as it did. One authority on the Eastern Question has noted that ‘The Ottoman Empire in 1774 was still stagnant and archaic. Its chances o f survival now seemed to many observers very small.’3 If the Empire survived for almost anoth­ er century and a half, that was due more to the rivalries of the Great Powers and their failure to reach agreement on how to divide ‘the sick man’s’ legacy than to the patient’s will and determination to survive. Yet Ottoman state and society as they approached the end of Empire were very different from the description o f 1774. In the century and a half that ha elapsed, m ajor changes were introduced into the entire structure o f the Empire. These changes did not save it but they did lay new foundations without which there could have been no nation state.

3

Ibid, p. xxi.

the late ottoman «m p lie 4 7

The Empire at the beginning o f the nineteenth century may best be described as a ‘tributary state’.4 The military-bureaucratic ruling class restod on no specific socio-economic foundations (as did the rul­ ing class in pre-industrial Europe whose power was based on land ownership). Instead, it appropriated surplus in the form o f revenue from all sectors o the economy: the land, internal and foreign trade, and manufacturing. Out o f their on self-interest, Ottoman rulers pro­ tected all these sectors without allowing any one o f them to influence state policy and to emerge dominant over the others. Thus, while land­ holders and merchants acquired great wealth and were vital to the economy, they were never permitted to exercise political power. These economic groups failed therefore to develop as a political class. The great Ottom an transform ation coincided with the Napoleonic episode in the Levant. The state was threatened internally by reactionary rebellions against reform and externally by Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt. In the ensuing turmoil, new political forces - name­ ly, the landed provincial élite supported by the reformist bureaucracy - intervened on behalf o f the sultan. After defeating the reactionaries - at least, temporarily - they forced the sultan to confirm their own rights and privileges.56 The signing o f the ‘Deed o f Agreement* (sened-i ittifak), Turkey’s Magna Carta, in 1808 marked the emergence o f landed inter­ ests as a political force at the centre. Despite setbacks, by 1826 the alliance o f sultan, landed élite, and bureaucracy had succeeded in defeating the reactionaries. Soon after, the bureaucracy at the Sublime Porte virtually seized control of the affairs o f state. It launched a series of reforms whose aim was to create a modem state apparatus and limit the autocratic powers o f the sultan.4 In the years 1840-70 three 4 5

The term is adopted from Samir Amin, The Arab Nation , London, 1978. Bernard Lewis, The Emergence o f M odem Turkey, 2nd edn, London, 1968, pp. 7 5-7; see also Niyazi Berkes, The Developm ent o f Secularism in Turkey, M ontreal, 1964. For a contrary opin­ ion, see Şerif M ardin, The Genesis o f Young Ottoman Though , Princeton, N J, 1962, pp. 147-8.

6

Carter V. Findley, Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire: The Sublime Porte 1789-1922 , Princeton, N J, 1 9 8 0 , passim.

4 8 from empile to republic: essays on the late ottom an empire and m odem turkey

statesmen - the grand vezirs/Foreign Ministers M ustafa Reşid Paşa (1800-58), Ali Paşa (1815-71), and Fuad Paşa (1815-69) - ran the Empire and conducted its foreign relations. They were convinced ‘Westerners’, who, having seen Europe at close quarters, concluded that it was futile to resist her advance and wiser to emulate her by adopting her ideas and institutions. Better still, they believed, make the Empire a part o f the European system by letting it be integrated into the rapidly expanding world economy, the impact o f whose exports was painfully apparent in the Ottom an economy as early as the 1820s.789The policies o f these ‘W esterners' soon created modem-sound­ ing state institutions, but they also had a disastrous effect on the econ­ omy and society, leading to bankruptcy and foreign control. There was a popular reaction against these men and their poli­ cies because they were held responsible for making the Empire sub­ servient to the West. Ali Paşa was described as ‘the ambassador o f that European Power which was m ost influential in Istanbul rather then the foreign minister o f the Ottom an Empire’.* As a result, the sultan became a popular figure, the symbol o f opposition to the West, and regained the initiative from the bureaucrats. For the next generation, Sultan Abdülhamid II (1876-1909) ruled the Empire from Yıldız Palace, aided by a clique of favourites and sycophants who created their own closed ‘palace system’. There was a marked degeneration in the power o f the grand vezirate and the Foreign Ministry, both being closely associated with the discredited ‘Westerners’.* Such ministers became creatures o f the sultan, dependent for their official survival upon patronage and intrigue within the Palace clique. Thus, in the

7

Lewis, Emergence, p .4 5 7 . M usa Çadırcı writes that the Muslim merchants were unable to get the su lu n to protect them from European competition and consequently their position declined rapidly. See his ‘D. M ahm u t Döneminde (1 8 0 8 -1 9 3 9 ) Avrupa ve Hayriye Tüccarları’, in O sm an O kyar and Halil İnalcık (eds), Social and Econom ic History o f Turkey (1271-1922)y A nkara,

8

1 9 8 0 , pp. 2 3 7 -4 1 . M . K . Inal, Osmanlt D evrinde Son Sadrazamlar, vol. I, Istanbul, 1955, p. 34.

9

See Findley, ‘Civil-bureaucratic hegemony of the Tanzimat’, Bureaucratic Reform , pp. 1 5 1 -5 .

the late ottoman empire

49

years 1871-85 there were more than twenty changes at the Foreign M inistry; only thereafter was there a semblance o f stability with Kürd Said Paşa and Ahmed Tevfik Paşa acting as foreign ministers during the years 1885-95 and 1895-1909 respectively.101The Foreign Ministry had become a technical appendage to the Palace where policy was actually made. In such circumstances, the Under-Secretary at the Ministry, especially if he were as talented as Artin Dadian Paşa, became more important than the Minister; for he supplied the infor­ mation on which policy was based. By and large, career diplomats played a secondary role, while Abdiilhamid used his confidants as negotiators and ambassadors. This state o f affairs lasted until the con­ stitutional revolution of 1908.11 The Young Turk revolution marked the end o f the Hamidian system and the temporary resurgence o f the Sublime Porte to its for­ mer glory. With the establishment o f political parties and parliamen­ tary politics, the element o f ideology was injected into the bureaucra­ cy, including the Foreign Ministry. It is thus possible to chart the course o f the revolution by the changes at the grand vezirate and the Ministry o f Foreign Affairs alone. Even though the Constitution was restored in July 1908, Abdiilhamid’s vrand vezirs, Said and Kamil Paşa’s, and his Foreign Minister, Tevfik Paşa, continued in office. It is true that they were now independent o f the sultan and were taking measures to strengthen the Porte against the encroachments o f both the Palace and the Committee o f Union and Progress (CUP) - the most radical organisationin the Young Turk movement - but Said and Kamil were nevertheless men of die old regime. Only after the CUP had engineered the foil o f Kamil Paşa in February 1909 were the Unionists able to replace Tevfik, who, ‘perhaps because o f his long habituation o f the Hamidian system, did 10

Ibid., p. 2 5 5 . In 1 9 0 9 , Tevfik Paşa was briefly grand vezir during the counter-revolution and then was sent to London as Ambassador. He was again appointed grand vezir during the armistice period. See below, pp. 8-9.

11

Ibid, p. 2 6 3 .

50

from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

not seem to know anything about the regulations supposed to govern his ministry’.12 Tevfik’s successor, Mehmed Rifat Paşa (1860-1925), was a career diplomat. He joined the translation bureau o f the Foreign M inistry in 1882, became minister to Athens in 1897 and ambassador to London in 1905, whence he was recalled to be Foreign Minister. R ifat’s sympathy for Unionist aspirations was as important as his pro­ fessionalism in leading to his appointment. Socially he belonged to the declining class of Turkish Muslim merchants whose fortunes the CUP hoped to revive by instituting protectionism and abolishing the privi­ leges o f foreigners. R ifat’s father and brother were merchants o f the Balkapi district in Istanbul, and his brother Şefik joined the CUP and was elected to Parliament. Rifat himself was considered sufficiently loyal to the Committee to be given a safe parliamentary seat for Istan­ bul.13 Rifat Paşa was succeeded in September 1911 by M ustafa Asım, another career diplomat with Unionist sympathies, who was immedi­ ately replaced by the anti-Unionist government o f Ahmed M uhtar Paşa (1839-1918) in July 1912. This Liberal government brought to the Foreign M inistry Gabriel Noradunghian, an Armenian national­ ist, in the fond hope of swaying the Great Powers towards Turkey during the Italo-Turkish and the First Balkan Wan14 After the Unionist coup d'état of January 1913, except (or the interim appoint12

See Feroz Ahmad, The Young Turks: The Committee o f Union and Progress in Turkish Politics,

1908-1914 , London, 1 9 6 9 , pp. 14-36; the quotation is from Findley, Bureaucratic Reform , p. 299. 13

Rifat was retained by the government o f the counter-revolution because he was considered to be close to London, having been Ambassador there. He was Ambassador in Paris 1 911-14 and in Berlin in 1918. He refused to serve in the anti-national armistice governments, prefering early retirement. See Ahmad, Young Turks, p. 177.

14

Noradunghian Efendi joined the Foreign Ministry in 18 7 0 under the patronage o f Ali Paşa. He was sent to study law in Paris and later joined the Porte's legal department. In 1908 he was appointed senator and also served in Kamil Paşa’s Cabinet. In 1911 he joined the liberal Union and was also a member o f the Armenian National Assembly, whose president he became in 1914. See Celai Bayai; Ben de Yazdım , vol. DI, Istanbul, 1966, pp. 7 5 7 -9 and 90 6 -1 1 .

the late ottoman empire 5 1

ment o f M uhtar Bey, the Foreign M inistry was always occupied by someone from the inner circle o f the CUP. Said Halim Paşa (18631921), the Egyptian prince from the house o f Muhammad Ali, who was already Foreign Ministe^ became grand vezir in June 1913 and remained in office until October 1915. He was succeeded in the M inistry by H alil (who adopted in 1934 the family surname M enteşe), a key member o f the Committee, who was replaced by Ahmed Nesimi, a confidant o f Talat Paşa, when the latter became grand vezir in February 1917. The Unionists considered diplomacy to be too important to be left to diplomats. Thus, even when they were not in power they engaged in diplomatic manoeuvres independently o f and unknown to the government. Until they came to power in 1913, the Unionists were the self-appointed guardians of the new regime, exercising power without responsibility. They were often impatient with official proce­ dures and suspicious o f the Foreign Ministry, which they regarded as being both cautious and timid in its dealings with foreign states. M oreover they believed that many of their professional diplomats had leanings towards Liberal political groups which made them willing to reach compromise with the Powers over the Empire’s sovereignty the very thing the CUP was determined to regain.15 The Committee, therefore, sent its emissaries and deputations to convey its views to foreign embassies and governments. Even after the Unionists had gained control o f the Foreign Ministry, their delegations, supported in technical matters by career men, countinued to deal with matters of war and peace, as well as with the search for alliances. The same meth­ ods were used throughout the war, until the resignation of Talat Paşa’s Cabinet in October 1918. It was replaced by a government untainted by association with the war party in the hope that the Allies would give better armistice terms to such a ministry. 15

In the context o f this chapter Liberal with a capital T refers to supporters of anti-Unionists political groups like (Ahrar Fırkası and Hürriyet ve İhtilâf Fırkası) Members o f these parties described themselves as Liberals when addressing foreigners.

52 from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

The fall of the CUP allowed the Palace to regain the initiative once again, though only for less than a year. In those months, Sultan Mehmed VI Vahdettin (1918-22) reverted to the diplomacy of the Liberal Young Turks and that meant total reliance on and subservience to Great Britain. Old and discredited members of the Ottoman ancien régime were resurrected in order to form ephemeral governments and conduct personal diplomacy. Thus, Tevfik Paşa formed two ministries between November 1918 and M arch 1919, to be followed by Abdülhamid’s brother-in-law Damad Ferid Paşa (1853-1923), who led three cabinets in seven months. Damad Ferid, having served in diplo­ matic missions throughout Europe during the Hamidian era, and hav­ ing been acquainted with European statesmen during his tenure as a Liberal politician, was considered an asset in the negotiations for the very survival o f the Ottoman state and dynasty. Such hopes proved illusory. The British-backed Greek invasion of Anatolia on 15 May 1919 and the paralysis o f the Istanbul government ended any hope of the sultan’s regime gaining popular acceptance.1* Meanwhile, local notables had begun organising resistance to the foreign occupation of Anatolia. By the summer of 1919, a nation­ al movement was taking shape under the leadership o f Mustafa Kemal Paşa (1881-1938), named Atatürk, or ‘Father Turk’, in 1934. The nationalist movement’s Representative Committee soon became an alternative focus of power and a direct challenge to the Istanbul gov­ ernment. After the capital was occupied by Allied troops on 16 March 1920, the nationalists announced the formation of a government in Ankara on 23 April. They claimed, with much justification, that the sultan was a ‘prisoner’ o f the Allies and was therefore no longer capa­ ble of acting on behalf o f the Turkish people. So far, nationalist diplo­ macy had been confined to unofficial contacts with representative of foreign powers in Anatolia. But, having declared themselves a govern-16 16

Sina Akşin, İstanbul Hükümetleri ve Milli M ücadele, İstanbul, 1 976, has provided the most detailed and comprehensive account of the activities o f the Palace during the armistice period. See also Lewis, Emergence, pp. 2 3 9 - 4 2 ,2 5 0 -2 and passim.

the late ottoman empire

53

ment, the nationalists had to organise a Foreign Office. In M ay 1920 the N ational Assembly elected Bekir Sami as its first Foreign Minister.1718 Bekir Sami (1864-1932), a former Unionist provincial governor, had joined the nationalists movement during its organisational phase and worked closely with Kemal Paşa, winning his trust and confi­ dence. The same was true o f Yusuf Kemal (Tengirşenk) (1878-1969) and İsmet (İnönü) (1885-1973), who succeeded Bekir Sami and served as Foreign Ministers until the proclamation o f the Republic o f Turkey in October 1923. Both men enjoyed Mustafa Kemal’s trust, and that was perhaps the most important qualification required for the post of Foreign Minister; Policy, formulated collectively by Kemal Paşa’s inner circle on the advice o f seasoned diplomats like Ahmed Rüstern Bey de Bilinski,1* had to be implemented to the letter if the struggle for a sov­ ereign and independent Turkey were not to be compromised at die negotiating table. Thus, Bekir Sami was asked to resign in May 1921 Tor having made economic concessions’ to European Powers during talks in London, thereby violating ’the principles of the National Government’. He was denounced by Mustafa Kemal as ’an adherent o f peace at any price’,19 suggesting that the Kemalists would continue fighting for their programme o f self-determination. After this event, die Foreign Minister had even less authority, for he was invariably 17

Roderic Davison, Turkish diplomacy from Mudros to Lausanne’, in Gordon Craig and Felix Gilbert (eds), The Diplomats 1 9 1 9 -1 9 3 9 , New York, 1963, p. 183.

18

On Ahmed Rüstern see M ine Erol, A. Küstern Bey, Ankara, n.d. Son o f a Polish convert to Islam and an English m other a member o f a well-known British family resident in Istanbul, Ahmed Rüstern (1 8 6 2 -1 9 3 5 ) was a career diplomat. As a result o f exposing corruption in the Hamidian diplomatic service he was forced to live in exile between 1900 and 1908, being recalled after the revolution. Ahmed Bey was appointed ambassador in Washington in 1914 but was declared

persona non grata in September because be responded to American criticism o f his government’s policies by denouncing the lynching o f Blacks in the South and the use o f water torture in the Philippines. In 1 9 1 9 he joined the nationalists and served as adviser on foreign affairs. 19

A Speech D elivered by Mustafa Kem al Atatürk 1927, new edn, Istanbul, 1 963, pp. 4 9 6 -5 0 0 ; Davison, Turkish Diplomacy’, p. 189. Kemal’s speech was originally entitled A Speech D elivered by Ghazi Mustafa Kemal, President o f the Turkish Republic, O ctober 1927 and was published in Leipzig in 1929.

54

from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and modem turkey

accompanied by a small group of advisers who made sure that he did not go beyond his brief.20 Even İsmet Paşa at Lausanne had constant­ ly to seek instructions from Ankara, and that resulted in prolonged negotiations. If the method of making and implementing policy differed from regime to regime during the last years of the Empire, the aim o f poli­ cy remained virtually unchanged until the end of the First World War. The fundamental aim was to maintain the integrity o f the Empire threatened by the aggressive designs o f the Great Powers and the nationalist aspirations o f the subject peoples; the latter invaraibly sought great Power patronage in order to achieve their ends. Only in 1919 was there a dramatic clash between the aspirations o f the old ruling class and those of the national movement. The sultan o f the defeated Empire was willing to accept a truncated state in the parti­ tioned Anatolia, even under a foreign mandate, so long as he was allowed to retain some vestiges o f his traditional authority.21 The nationalists, on the other hand, refused to settle for anything less than self-determination for a sovereign Turkish nation. This, they argued, was in keeping with the principles proclaimed by President Wilson. The approach o f these two antagonists to foreign relations differed sharply; but so did the approach of those regimes united in the aim of saving the Empire. The Turkish ‘Westerners', led by Reşid, Ali and Fuad Paşa’s, believed that the Ottoman Empire could be saved by being integrated into the Western political and economic system. They had a vested interest in promoting Westemisaton at home, for it strengthened their position vis-à-vis an autocratic sultan who, under the traditional order; enjoyed the power of life and death over his bureaucrats. The

20

There is a strong hint here o f a Soviet system o f political commisars to make sure that the diplo­

21

This is evident from the sultan’s acceptance o f the Treaty o f Sèvres in 1920. See Paul Helmreich,

mats toed the nationalist line.

From Paris to Sèvres: The Partition o f the Ottoman Empire at the Peace Conference o f 191920, Columbus, O hio, 1974; and Lewis, Emergence, p. 2 4 7 .

the late ottoman empire

55

Charters o f 1839 and 1856 and the 1876 Constitution altered that by establishing equality for all before the law, as well as placing other restraints on the sultan's autocracy.22 The motives of this Westernising bureaucracy were not entirely self-serving. The reformers sincerely believed that it would be wiser for IslanbiiT to join rather than resist Europe, as Ottoman conservatives proposed. The Empire would benefit from joining the world econom­ ic system (it was happening anyway) and finding a place in the new division of labour. That was the logic behind Reşid Paşa signing the Treaty o f Balti Liman in 1938 - the agreement to establish free trade throughout the Empire.23 While its implementation undermined exist­ ing manufactures by making them even less competitive against virtu­ ally duty-free imports, it enhanced the export of raw materials to Europe. The treaty also liberated landholders from the buying monop­ oly of the state and permitted them to sell directly to foreign buyers or their agents at the higher market prices. The landed class emerged strengthened both politically and economically. Within a generation it provided the socio-economic foundation for the Ottoman state which no longer controlled commerce and industry, now largely the preserve of Europeans and their Christian clients.24 The policies o f the ‘Westerners’ were successful in so far as they gave the Empire the semblance of modernity, with Western institu­ tions, palaces and furniture in the French style, and frock coats. There was even a hint o f acceptance by the Powers when the Empire was included in the Concert o f Europe in 1856 and its integrity guaran­ 22

Ibid, pp. 106ff.

23

See Charles Issawi (ed.), The Econom ic History o f the M iddle East, 1800-1914, Chicago and London, 1 9 6 6 , pp. 3 8 -4 0 ; and Oya Köymen; ‘The advent and consequences o f free trade in the O ttoman Empire*, in Etudes Balkaniques, vol. D, Sofia, 1971, pp. 4 7 -5 6 . The most detailed study o f Anglo-Ottoman economic relations during this periods to be found in Muhabat Kütükoğlu, Osmanlt-tngiliz iktisadi M ünasebetleri 1839-1850 , vol. D, İstanbul, 1976.

24

The emergence o f a Turkish landed class as a political force still awaits study. The passage of the 1858 Land Code is, however, symptomatic o f its rise. See Issawi, Econom ic history , pp. 659 0 , and Lewis, Emergence, pp. 4 4 8 -5 1 . In Iraq such a class did emerge. See Hanna Batutu, The

O ld Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements o f Iraq, Princeton, N J, 1978.

5*

from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

teed. But the burden o f free trade and superstructural Westernisation proved too heavy for the traditional sectors o f the economy and soci­ ety. Psychologically, the provision o f legal equality for non-Muslim subjects, already more advanced materially, affected adversely the Ottoman Muslim psyche accustomed to enjoying a totally false sense of superiority vis-d-vis the ‘infidels’. All these complex factors pro­ duced a reaction against the ‘Westerners’ and Westernisation. The sul­ tan, posing as the champion o f the traditional order; but also alarmed by Western penetration, seized the initiative from his bureaucrats. Even though the movement against Westernisation had an Islamic character; it was by no means reactionary. It was essentially anti-impe­ rialist and a response to increasing Western dominance in the Islamic world and Asia. It provided Abdülhamid with the opportunity to exploit his position as caliph to mobilise sentiment throughout the Islamic world (including India) against the West - something the CUP regime continued to do, especially during the First World War.2526 The new balance o f power in Europe marked by the defeat of France and the emergence o f Germany and Italy as Great Powers facil­ itated the sultan’s task o f trying new options in foreign relations. By turning to Germany, Abdülhamid hoped to counter the Russian threat by means other than support from Paris and London. At the same time he hoped to challenge what he saw as the Anglo-French monopoly over Ottoman affairs. The German card was in fact an old one; Ottoman sultans had used it against Russia in the eighteenth century.2* Abdülhamid came to rely on it despite Bismarck’s initial snub. He had great admiration for Prussia even before he became sultan and is said to have wagered a hundred liras (then worth about £100 sterling) on a Prussian victory in the war against France. Abdülhamid, noted his personal physician, hated Russia, had contempt for France, feared Britain, and saw 25

O n pan-Islam see Berkes, Secularism , pp. 253 ff.; Lewis, Emergence, pp. 3 4 0 -4 3 ; and Karal,

Osmanlt Tarihi, vol. VIII, pp. 539-50.

26 Ibid, pp. 161-6.

the late ottoman empire

57

Germany as a faithful ally.27 By the 1890s the German card was even more potent because o f Germany’s increasing strength and ambition as a world power. That suited Abdiilhamid’s pan-Islamism since Germany, unlike England, France and Russia, did not colonise Muslim lands and therefore was not suspect in Muslim eyes as an imperialist power. On the contrary, Kaiser Wilhelm was able to present himself to the Muslim world as the champion of Islam against its enemies, rather as Napoleon had tried to do in an earlier age.2* Apart from the ideological and personal factors which brought Berlin and Constantinople together there were also other factors which united these Empires, the most important being the economic and the geopolitical. Abdiilhamid believed that by giving economic concessions to Germany, especially concessions like the BerlinBaghdad railway, he would give her an economic stake in the Ottoman Empire, obliging her to intervene on the Porte's behalf in both politi­ cal crises and wars. The German railway concession would facilitate the movement of troops to assist him from Europe as well as from within the Empire, and could not be threatened by English sea power.29 The link was strengthened even more when the sultan asked the Kaiser to train the Ottoman army. Abdiilhamid’s strategy o f attacking the positions of England, France and Russia in the Ottoman Empire by involving Germany undoubtedly worked. Germany soon became a serious rival to the

27

Ibid, p. 173, quoting the diaries of Abdiilhamid’s physician, now located in the archives of the Turkish Historical Society.

28

Ibid., p. 180. Karal seems correct in interpreting the Kaiser’s ‘promise’ to defend the Muslim world for the sultan-caliph as being limited to the defence o f Anatolia and the Arab provinces; the predominantly Christian Balkans were regarded in Berlin as Austria’s sphere. The Kaiser also flattered Abdiilhamid by being the first European ruler to visit the sultan, which he did in 1889.

29

Ibid, pp. 175-7. While Anglo-French lines, e.g. the tzmir-Kasaba line, were designed largely to carry raw materials from the interior to the coast for shipment to Europe, German railway pro­ jects were expected to open up Anatolia and bring prosperity to the land by providing cheap transportation for local produce. T hat was the only hope for local produce being able to com ­ pete against the grain imports from America.

58 from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

other imperialist powers, and tensions between them sharpened. Whether that helped to prolong the life o f the Empire, as Abdülhamid hoped it would, or hastenied its demise, is debatable. It certainly made the Great Power rivalry more complex and therefore more dif­ ficult to resolve. Had Germany been kept out o f Ottoman affairs extremely unlikely given German power - it is possible that the Entente Powers might have established a condominium over the Empire. They could then have partitioned it at their convenience. Such a scenario, however; assumes the Ottoman Empire in the role of a passive victim awaiting its destiny in a fatalistic frame o f mind. That was never the case. If Abdülhamid was successful in making the Eastern Question more complex through German participation, he was never able to commit Berlin to the defence and integrity of the Empire. He also never tried to got beyond the policy o f playing off the Powers against each other by offering to become Germany’s formal ally. That would have required, if nothing else, a strong army, since Germany was not likely to form an alliance with a liability; and Abdülhamid, despite his high military spending and his commitment to army reform, saw a strong army as a threat to his own position.30 His internal policies, though reformist in character were designed to strengthen the status quo rather than to introduce structural social change. Be that as it may, the erosion of Ottoman society went on apace with Western penetration, and the sultan could do little to arrest this process. Finally, in 1908 he suc­ cumbed to revolution, which, as in everything else, began the active phase in Ottoman foreign relations, with the search for a European ally. 30

According to German instructors training the sultan's army, Abdülhamid had an 'instinctive rather than conscious fear o f the power a good army would wield'; Alfred Vagts, D efense and Diplomacy: The Soldier and the Conduct o f Foreign Relations, New York, 1956, p. 191, where he cites Gen. W. Giesl von Gieslingen, Zwei Jahrzehnte im Nahen Orient, Berlin, 1927, p. 4 7 . Karal, Osmanlt Tarihi, vol. VŒ , pp. 1 79-80, quotes von der Goltz’s argument, made after the Balkan Wai; that while the Ottoman Empire had such vast borders and so many enemies no power would wish to form an alliance with it. O n the decline of the army under Abdülhamid, see ibid, pp. 3 6 9 -7 5 .

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59

The Young Turk revolution commenced with the limited goal of restoring the 1876 Constitution. Its long-term aims, however were far more ambitious. They were nothing less than to rejuvenate and trans­ form Ottoman society so as to make the Empire accepted as an equal by the Great Powers. Nothing describes the ambitions of the Young Turks better than their claim to be the ‘J aPan of the Near East’.31 Internally, that meant converting the Empire from the status o f a semi­ colony, controlled and exploited by the European Powers, to a sover­ eign capitalist state, exploiting its own imperial resources for its own benefit. It is important to emphasise that to the Unionists ‘modernisa­ tion’ or ‘Westernisation’ had come to mean adopting capitalism, and not just reforming institutions. They understood that a capitalist soci­ ety had its own class structure, including a bourgeoisie, to sustain it, and they began to take steps to create such a society.32 The first task o f the Young Turks was to win acceptance from the Great Powers and have them abandon all the privileges they enjoyed through the Capitulations. They believed that Europe, espe­ cially England and France, would be sympathetic to a revolution which was struggling to set up a constitutional system modelled on those o f Europe. After all, the principal reason why Europe insisted on retaining the Capitulations was its claims that is citizens residing in the Ottoman Empire could not be expected to live under an alien and archaic system of law and government. If this obstacle were removed, and a system o f government acceptable to Europe instituted, then there would be no reason for the Capitulations. Initially the Young Turks - Unionists and Liberals - turned to Britain for support. Germany had supported the Hamidian regime and acquired a strong foothold in the Empire through the concessions granted by the old regime. By encouraging Britain to compete against 31

Ahmed Rıza and Dr. Nazim’s interview with Sir Edward Grey in letter from Grey to Lowthei; private, 13 Nov. 1 9 0 8 , FO 800/184A, quoted in Feroz Ahmad, ’Great Britain's relations with the Young Turks 1 9 0 8 -1 9 1 4 ’, Middle Eastern Studies, vol. II, no. 4 (1966), p. 306.

32

For details see Feroz Ahmad, ’Vanguard of a nascent bourgeoisie: the social and economic poli­ cies o f the Young Turks 1 908-1918’, in Okyar and İnalcık (eds), Economic History, pp. 329-50.

6

o

from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

Germany and France for new concessions, the Young Turks hoped to break France and Germany’s hold and acquire greater autonomy for the Porte. Hostility to Germany increased when her ally Austria* Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina in October 1908. The proUnionist Tanin went so far as to suggest that Vienna’s motive in car­ rying out this act was to strike a blow against the constitutional regime and assist reaction in order to bring about its fall.33 The Young Turks found themselves isolated and let down by the attitude of the Powers in view of the violation of the Treaty of Berlin they themselves had signed. There was little the Turks could do except vent their frustration by organising a boycott of AustroHungarian goods.34 The Unionists, however, decided to approach Britain with an offer of alliance. Two prominent Unionists, Ahmed Rıza and Dr Nazim, were sent to London to discuss the matter with Sir Edward Grey and Sir Charles Hardinge. The proposal was polite­ ly rejected. Grey told them that our habit was to keep our hands free, though we made ententes and friendships. It was true that we had an alliance with Japan, but it was limited to certain distant questions in the Far East. They replied that Turkey was the Japan o f the Near East, and that we already had the Cyprus Convention with Turkey which was still in force. I said that they had our entire sympathy in the good work they were doing in Turkey; we wished them well, and we would help them in their internal affairs by lending them men to organise cus­ toms, police, and so forth, if they wished them.35

33

Tanin, 8 O ct. 19 0 8 , p. 1.

34

There is a useful article on the boycott and its implications for the Turkish economy. See Erdal Yavuz, ‘ 1908 Boykotu’, in Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Gelişme Dergisi: 1908 ö z e l Sayist (Türkiye iktisat tarihi üzerine araştırmaları) (Ankara, 1978), pp. 163-81. See also Bridge’s arti­ cle in M arian Kent, G reat Pow ers..., pp.31-51.

35

As in n. 3 1 , p. 3 0 9 . The Unionist mission had no governmental authority, and grand vezir Kamil Paşa complained to Lowther that ‘they spoke as if they represented the Ottoman Government*. See dispatch no. 8 5 5 from Lowther to Grey, 13 Dec. 1 9 0 8 , FO 371/546/43987.

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61

Despite this rebuf, the Unionists did not abandon their proBritish attitude. They considered Britain the lynchpin o f the Triple Entente and, if she could be won over, France and Russia would be, too. They were optimistic that their programme o f reform would impress Britain and they were willing to bide their time. The CUP con­ tinued to support the anti-Unionist but pro-British Kamil Paşa, and when the Committee forced his resignation in February 1909 they promised to withhold their support from any ministry which might succeed him unless it pursued his policy o f friendship for England.3* Hüseyin Hilmi Paşa, who succeeded Kamil as grand vezir, personally went to assure the British Ambassador that ‘his policy towards England would be the same as that of his predecessors, and that he would continue to count on the support and advice o f HM G’.3637 N ot even the Britih embassy’s anti-Unionist attitude during the counter-revolution o f April 1909 could undermine the CUP's anglophilism. This was not based on sentiment but on political real­ ism and expediency. The counter-revolution had been crushed by the Third Army, and that brought Mahmut Şevket Paşa and the senior officers on to the political stage. The senior officers, many of them German-trained, were thought to be pro-German, and Şevket Paşa, who became the Empire’s strongman, was considered positively Germany’s man at the Porte. He had spent ten years in the German army and was said to be close to Field-Marshal von der Goltz, who was again in Turkey to train the army. However, there was no ques­ tion of Şevket Paşa seizing power in order to set up a regime devoted to German interests, as the CUP press claimed.38 Nevertheless, the Unionists, who were predominantly civilian, resented the intrusion of the army into government. One way to chal­

36

Hüseyin Cahid, ‘Kabinenin Sükutu ve Ingiltere*, Tanin, 15 Feb. 1909; dispatch no. 51 from Lowther to Grey, 14 Feb. 1909, FO 371/760/5984.

37

Dispatch no. 53 from Lowther to Grey, 15 Feb. 1909, FO 371/760/6275.

38

Hüseyin Cahid, *Almanlar ve Osmanlilar*, Tanin, 17 Dec. 1909, p. 1; on Mahmut Şevket Paşa see article by Feroz Ahmad in Encyclopedia o f Islam, 2nd edn, Leiden, 1953-.

62

from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

lenge and undermine the army’s position was by attacking Germany in the press and supporting friendship with Germany’s rival, Great Britain. But neither Britain nor France responded to Unionist profes­ sions o f friendship. In fact France resented the Porte’s desire to acquire financial autonomy. When in 1910 the Finance Ministry tried to nego­ tiate a loan without political and economic strings, the French sup­ ported by Britain offered humiliating terms which amounted to estab­ lishing French control over Turkish finances. The Unionists refused to accept such terms, and after protracted negotiations in Paris, London, and Berlin finally floated the loan in Germany.39 The first three years o f relations between the new regime and the Powers were demoralising and frustrating for the Turks. The Powers refused to make any concessions over the Capitulations and loosen their grip over the Empire’s internal affairs. The Turks were powerless because the Great Powers, despite their rivalries, were unit­ ed on the issue o f defending their privileges against Turkish assaults. In September 1911, when the Turco-Italian War broke out, the Porte was still isolated and totally without Great Power support.40 Germany was sympathetic but unable to help Turkey against her own ally, Italy. The Porte therefore turned once again to Britain and appealed for her support in the wan A month laten in October 1911, there followed a formal proposal o f alliance with either Britain alone or with the Triple Entente.41 This time Grey’s rejection was not outright. Once peace had been restored between Turkey and Italy, he would be ready, he wrote, ‘to discuss and exam ine... the measures which might be adopted for establishing on firm and durable basis a thoroughly good understand­ ing between the Ottoman Empire and this country’.42 But this was in »

Ahmad, Young Turks, pp. 7 2 and 7 5 ff. See also M arian Kent, ‘Agent o f empire? The National Bank o f Turkey and British foreign policy’, H istorical Journal, Vol. XV III, no. 2 (1975), pp. 374 -8 1 .

40 41

See Bosworth, M arian Kent (ed.), G reat Pow ers..., pp. 5 2 -7 5 . Memorandum from Turkish Minister o f Foreign Affairs to Foreign Office, 31 O ct. 1911. FO 371/1263/48554. This time it was an official proposal.

42

Quoted in Ahmad, Young Turks, p. 3 1 9 , n .31.

the late ottoman empire 6 3

the future. Meanwhile the war struck a critical blow at the fortunes of the CUP, bringing about its fall in July 1912. The Liberals were in power when the First Balkan War broke out in October. Peace was made with Italy, and the octogenarian anglophile Kamil Paşa was appointed grand vezir in the hope that would be able to win Britain’s support. Kamil launched his diplomat­ ic offensive with an appeal to Grey to intervene immediately in the current crisis. He reminisced about Anglo-Turkish friendship since the Crimean War, perhaps hoping to strike a sentimental note in Sir Edward’s heart. But Grey remained unmoved. He informed Kamil in no uncertain terms that the Powers would not intervene to save Edime (Adrianople) for the Turks, and that the idea o f territorial integrity was a dead letter. He advised Kamil to cede Edirne to the Bulgars before they lost other things that were not already lost43 - a chilling reminder that the capital, threatened at that moment by the Bulgars, might also fall and be lost to the Empire. It is not possible to understand Unionist policy and behaviour after 1913 without realising what a traumatic effect the disaster of the Balkan Wars had on the Turkish psyche. The Turks had lost the very lands that had provided the life-blood o f the Empire for centuries. M oreover the capital had come within an ace of falling to the enemy, spelling the end o f their Empire. Throughout this entire catastrophe the Great Powers had stood by, even though at the outbreak o f hostil­ ities they had declared that they would not permit a change in the sta­ tus quo. That declaration was based on the assumption of Turkish vic­ tories; after Turkish defeats these words, were conveniently forgot­ ten.44

43

Ibid., pp. 3 1 9 -2 0 . See also M arian Kent, ‘Constantinople and Asiatic Turkey, 1905-1914*, in F. H. Hinstey (ed.), British Foreign Policy under Sir Edward Grey, Cambridge, 1 977, pp. 154-6, and her article in M arian Kent (ed.), G reat Powers..., pp. 172-205.

44

Dring the 1 9 1 4-18 wai; Talat Paşa reminded the American ambassador o f this: ‘They promised that we should not be dismembered after the Balkan war and see what happened to European Turkey then.’ Henry Morgenthau, A mbassador M orgenthau’s Story, New York, 1918, p. 99.

*4

from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

The Unionists, who seized power in January 1913, were more convinced than ever that only an alliance with Britain and the Entente could guarantee the survival o f what remained o f the Empire. In June, therefore, the subject o f an Anglo-Turkish alliance was reopened by Tevfik Paşa, who restated his proposal o f October 1911. Once again the Turkish offer was turned down.45 Sir Louis M allet, who became Britain’s Ambassador to the Porte in 1914, noted that Turkey’s way o f assuring her independence is by an alliance with us or by an under­ taking with the Triple Entente. A less risky method [he thought] would be by a treaty or Declaration binding all the Powers to respect the independence and integrity of the present Turkish dominion, which might go as far as neutralisation, and participation by all the Great Powers in financial control and the application o f reform.*46 The Unionists could not possibly accept such proposals. They felt betrayed by what they considered was Europe’s anti-Turkish bias during the Balkan wars, and therefore they had no faith in Great Power declarations regarding the Empire’s independence and integri­ ty; the termination o f European financial control and administrative supervision was one o f the principal aims o f their movement. Sir Louis M allet seemed totally oblivious to that. The following year, in May 1914, Talat Bey, primas inter pares in the Unionist movement, offered an alliance to Russia, but that, too, was not accepted.47 The Committee’s final attempt to reach an under­ standing with an Entente Power was the approach to France. Cemal Paşa, another leading member o f the CUP with francophile proclivi­ ties, was sent to Paris in July 1914 for this purpose. He returned to 45

See Ahmad, Young Turks, p. 3 2 1 , n. 3 1 . M eanwhile in Cairo, in March 1914, Kamil Paşa saw Viscount Kitchener. He told him o f ‘the probability o f another revolution in the very near future [an abortive coup against the CUP took place in May] and asked Grey to consider “the ques­ tion whether some adequate foreign control might not be established in regard to the adminis­ tration in Turkey’*...’ Quoted in Ahmad, The Young Turks, pp. 127-8. In a crisis, the Liberals invariably turned to Britain.

46

Minute by Sir Louis M allet, undated, FO 371/1826/28098.

47

See also Bodgei; in M arian Kent (ed.), G reat Powers...» pp. 76-110.

the late ottoman empira 6 5

İstanbul with French m ilitary decorations but no alliance.48 Meanwhile, negotiations with Berlin had been opened, and Cemal’s failure in Paris gave an impetus to them. Even the pro-Entente Cemal Paşa recognised that Turkey had no choice but to conclude an agree­ ment with Germany to avoid being left isolated in another moment of crisis. That alliance was duly signed on 2 August 1914 as the First World War gathered momentum.49 There was a general consensus among Turks in favour o f the German alliance, for it ended Turkey’s isolation - a factor o f great psy­ chological significance in 1914. But Unionists differed as to whether or when Turkey should become a belligerent. After all the disasters the Empire had suffered in the recent past, most Unionists would have preferred to stay out o f the war, maintaining a benevolent neutrality in favour o f Germany. The war party, composed mainly o f junior army officers led by Enver Paşa, might have wished to enter the war lest Turkey be left out o f peace negotiations and be partitioned herself fol­ lowing a quick and inconclusive end, anticipated by almost everyone. But Enver was not strong enough to drag a reluctant government into war had the country’s financial situation not been desperate and the psychological pressures overwhelming. The financial and economic crisis was itself triggered by the outbreak o f the Austro-Serbian War in late July. There was a panic in Istanbul which paralysed economic life as European-controlled enter­ prises suspended their operations. Navigation companies stopped using Turkish ports, while insurance companies refused to insure goods which might be confiscated as contraband of war. The imperial treasury was exhausted with only 92,000 liras available in ready cash on 3 August and no European government willing to provide a loan.50 48

See also Fulton, in ibid, p. 141-171.

49

Djemal Paşa, M emories o f a Turkish Saatesman , Î9 Î3 -1 91 9, London, 1920, pp. 103-5. See also Trumpenei; in M arian Kent (ed.), Great Powers..., pp. 111-140.

50

Mehmet Cavit, ‘Meşrutiyet Devrini Ait Cavit Bey’in Hatıraları*, 72mm, 21 O ct. 1 9 4 4 ; and his testimony at the trial o f Unionists conducted by the Istanbul government in 1919 as a way to evade the war-guilt question. See Harp Kabinelerinin İsticvabı, ed. Hakkı T ank Us, Istanbul, 193 3 , pp. 82-3 and 93.

6 6 from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

Germany alone was willing to meet the Porte’s financial need, but only if the Porte joined the war.51 The Turks were convinced that the Entente Powers, especially England, took Turkey’s neutrality for granted. In London there was no awareness of the impact that the Allied blockade of the Straits would have on Turkish public opinion, or that the embargo on the two war­ ships, just completed in Britain and destined for the Turkish fleet, would anger ordinary Turks who had subscribed to the ’Fleet Fund’ for their purchase. The CUP, with its control of the press, exploited these inci­ dents against the Entente Powers. Once the war became general, there was a sense of relief among the Unionists becase the Great Powers could no longer practise gunboat diplomacy against Turkey. The government declared armed neutrality and general mobilisation at the beginning of August. It also began to make preparations to abrogate the Capitulations unilaterally so as to be able to act as a sovereign state again. W ith their newly found freedom, the Unionists came to see the war as an opportunity to renovate their entire society and regain their pride and selfrespect. The Turkish press noted with obvious approval how Japan had seized the opportunity provided by this war to con­ solidate its position in East Asia, forcing Germany to abandon its pos­ sessions in China. ’Who can say when Japan will do the same to France and England...?’ asked Tercüman-ı H akikat.52 Turkey watched Japanese activity with great admiration and envy; one senses a strong desire to emulate Japan’s example amongst the Turks, humiliated for so long by the West. 51

Cavid’s diary entry o 2 7 Sept. 1914 reads: *1 am certain that Germany will not give us any money unless we enter the war.' See Tanin, 12 Nov. 1944. Negotiations opened in Berlin, and Cavid noted on 12 O ctober: ‘They will give us 2 5 0 ,0 0 0 liras ten days after the agreement is signed, 7 5 0 ,0 0 0 ten days after we enter the war against either Russia or England, and the rest (4 million liras) would be paid in 4 0 0 ,0 0 0 lira instalments each month, thirty days after the dec­ laration o f war. If the war came to an end, so would the payments*. See Tanin, 15 and 16 Nov. 1 9 4 4 , and Ulrich Trumpenei; Germany and the Ottoman Empire 1914-1918, Princeton, N J, 196 8 , pp. 2 7 1 -8 4 , for a discussion of financial matters based on German documents, see Trumpener’s article in M arian Kent (ed.), Great Pow ers..., pp. 111-140.

52

‘Orient for the Orientals*, Tercüman-t H akikat, 2 0 Aug. 1914.

the late ottoman empire 6 7

The Porte took the first step to regain ‘for the Ottoman people its sovereignty and the nation its independence’ by unilaterally abol­ ishing the Capitulations on 9 September 1914.53 The announcement that foreigner would no longer enjoy a position o f privilege in the Empire boosted the morale o f the Turkish people, though it had the opposite effect among the Christian population. There were sponta­ neous expressions o f popular support for the government o f the type witnessed when a people acquire their independence after generations o f foreign subjugation. The CUP manipulated this sentiment by organ­ ising mammoth demonstrations, and declaring that the suppression of the hated Capitulations had concluded the first stage of the revolution and the nation was now ready for the second. It sovereignty and independence were won by a courageous stroke o f the pen, pride and self-respect were regained at great cost on the battlefield. The defence of the Straits at Gallipoli against the Allied onslaught did much to restore Turkish self-esteem. Failure in this long and bitterly waged campaign would have meant the destruction not only o f the Ottoman Empire, but perhaps also o f the Turkish people just as they were beginning to organise themselves as a nation. The Gallipoli campaign was therefore seen as a struggle for survival. Having emerged from it victorious, the Turks came to believe that they had won the right to be treated with respect by their enemies and as equals by their German and Austro-Hungarian allies.54 In the overall war effort, the Unionists were convinced that Turkey’s contribution was second to none. Turkish armies had tied down large numbers of Allied troops on various fronts, keeping them away from theatres in Europe where they would have been used against German and Austrian forces. M oreover the Turks claimed that their success at Gallipoli had been an important factor in bringing about the collapse 53

Tanin, 10 Sept. 19 1 4 , p. 1.

54

Later, the capture of the British army at Kut-ul Amara, along with Gen. Townshend, boosted Turkish morale even more. See A. J . Barker, The Bastard War: The M esopotamian Campaign

o f 1914-1918, New York, 1967.

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o f Russia, resulting in the revolution o f April 1917. They had turned the war in favour o f Germany and her allies. The newly found sense o f dignity and self-respect explains Turkish attitudes towards Germany and Austria which both allies, accustomed to subservience, found arrogant and chauvinistic. The Turks refused to make concessions even to their allies, whose busi­ nesses, for example, were told to work through the medium o f Turkish and to employ intermediaries who knew the language. This was part o f the Unionist scheme to further Turkish economic interests and to create an indigenous bourgeoisie.55 In 1917 the Cabinet went so far as to consider maintaning relations with Washington after the United States had declared war on Germany on 6 April. But the views o f the war party prevailed and they insisted on maintaining a common front with their allies. Thus, relations with America were broken on 20 April 1917.56 In return for such a show o f solidarity, the Unionists expected reciprocity from Germany when it was time to negotiate a peace treaty with the enemy. They expected Germany to continue fighting until Ottoman territories in the Arab provinces lost to England had been regained. They expected Germany to allow a Turkish sphere o f influence to be established in the Caucasus after Russia was dismembered at the peace-table. Unionist illusions were soon shattered when at Brest-litovsk they found that Berlin expected them to subordinate their interests to those o f Germany. For example, the Turkish delegation could not ask for a Russian withdrawal from eastern Anatolia because the Bolshevisks would ask for the evacuation o f their territories occupied by the Germans. The Germans refused to do that, and the Turks had to pay the price.57 In the final analysis, the Unionists simply lacked the power to back up their dreams and aspi­

55

Seen. 32.

56 57

Cavid, Tanin, 1, 2 and 5 M ay 1 945. A. K. Kurat, Türkiye ve Rusya (1798-1919), A nkara, 1 9 7 0 , pp. 3 5 2 ff., where Ottom an Foreign O ffice documents are extensively quoted; see also Stefanos Yerasimos, Türk-Sovyet İlişkileri, Istanbul, 1 9 7 9 , pp. 1 1 -1 5 ; and Trumpenei; Germany, p. 170.

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rations for a new Turkish Empire in the Caucasus, and their allies knew it. The Unionists signed the German alliance and entered die war convinced that neutrality would be disastrous for Turkey since it would leave her isolated and at die mercy o f all die belligerents. The alliance was a gamble which the CUP believed gave Turkey a fighting chance to survive. The Turks could now prove themselves as the allies of a Great Power and again win the respect o f Europe. With their experience of the Powers, there was no question o f using Germany for their ends. Rather seeing that the alliance was signed after the outbreak o f wai; the Unionists realised that they were the ones who could be used. But even that was preferable to isolation and a sense o f impotence they knew so well. Was Turkish participation in the war the final nail in the coffin? Possibly. It is unlikely, however, that a neutral Turkey would have been allowed to remain neutral by the Triple Entente; it is improbable that the Empire would have survived intact the declaration of the Wilsonian principle of self-determination. But without participating in the war it would not have been possible for the Unionists to carry out the trans­ formation so necessary for laying the foundations of the new state and society that were to result in the Republic of Turkey. The victory o f the Entente signalled the end o f the Ottoman Empire; the question was what would succeed it. The sultan and the liberals in the capital returned to the old policy o f total dependence on Britain in the hope o f salvaging whatever they could of their former territories. As we saw above, they tried to placate the Allies by form­ ing a Cabinet willing to subordinate itself to Allied wishes.58 While the sultan placed all his hopes in British support, even a British mandate, a group o f intellectuals in the capital formed the Wilsonian Principles Society in the belief that an American mandate would be preferable for Turkey.59 Both groups had lost the will to struggle for independent survival and had come to accept the inevitability o f foreign tutelage. 58

Akşin, Istanbul Hükümetleri, pp. 6 4 ft.

59

Ibid, p. 117; Lewis, Emergence, p. 2 41.

7 0 from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

Outside the capital, however, a national movement was taking shape despite the defeatism of the old ruling class. The new social forces - principally the landholders and the bourgeoisie - which had developed during the Young Turk period and which had much to lose from the Allied scheme to dismember the Empire, including Anatolia, rallied to the nationalist cause.*0 The nationalists, under M ustafa Kemal’s leadership, abandoned all imperial and pan-Turkist irredentism and fought for a sovereign, national Turkey in keeping with Wilsonian principles. They were fortunate in having to face a warweary Europe, too exhausted after 1920 to impose its will on Turkey. Moreover; the Allies were divided because of their imperialist rivalries over the partition of Anatolia. Mustafa Kemal was able to exploit these rivalries with the same skill as the Ottomans. A working rela­ tionship with the Soviet regime in the north proved to be most impor­ tant for the natonalists. Whatever the ideological differences between these two movements, their common imperialist enemies kept them together in an alliance of convenience. Soon after the nationalists formed their Foreign Office and elected Bekir Sami as Foreign Minister in May 1920, they sent a diplo­ matic mission to Moscow, thus effectively ending their international isolation. A draft treaty was initialled in Moscow on 24 August, two weeks after the sultan had signed the humaliating Treaty of Sèvres, accepting the partition o f Turkey. In Anatolia, the nationalists began to take measures to abort the Armenian state to which the Treaty of Sèvres was to give birth. By November they had advanced beyond Kars, and the Bolsheviks who had just captured the government of the Armenian state from the Mensheviks prevailed upon it to make peace with the nationalists. Thus, Ankara’s first international treaty was60

60

This fact emerges quite clearly from the proceedings o f the Economic Congress o f Turkey held in Feb. 1923. The ideology o f the new state that was established thereafter consistently favoured the interests o f these groups. The proceedings of the Congress are now conveniently available in Türkiye iktisat Kongresi: 1923 Izmir, Ankara, 1 968, compiled and edited by A. Gündüz ö k çü n .

the late ottoman empire

signedon 2 December 1920, establishing Turkey’s new boundaries in the east.6162 N ationalist policy continued to be a fine mix of military force and diplomacy. Successes on the battlefield against Greek forces yield­ ed diplomatic gains, such as the Treaty o f Ankara with France (October 1921), which followed the victory at Sakarya in August.6* This pattern continued until the Greek Army was driven out of Anatolia, and Britain, which had supported the Greeks, decided to negotiate with the nationalists. After protracted negotiations, the nationalists achieved their aim o f establishing a sovereign and inde­ pendent republic.

The all-pervasive character o f European intervention in Ottoman affairs needs to be explained. W hat were the special circumstances in the Ottoman Empire that enabled Europe to interfere so effectively? The simple answer is that the nineteenth century was the European century par excellence , and hardly any part of the globe escaped Europe’s attention. Even distant China and Japan were ‘opened up’ to Europe’s-and America’s-expanding economy. Given its strategic loca­ tion and its proximity to Europe, the Ottoman Empire could hardly have escaped European encroachments. Besides, each o f the Great Powers had a lively interest in the Empire, and the pursuit of this inter­ est is the theme o f the other chapters. Here we need only look at some o f the special characteristics of the Ottoman situation which facilitat­ ed European penetration. The wastness o f the Empire which stretched from the borders o f Austria-Hungary in the west to the Red Sea in the east made it dif­ ficult to control in an age o f poor communications. Despite the rail­

61

Davison, Turkish diplomacy*, pp. 186,7; for a detailed account based on Turkish documents, see Kurat, Türkiye ve Rusya, pp. 396-494.

62

Davison, Turkish diplomacy*, pp. 193-4.

7 2 from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

ways and the telegraphy, central authority was shadowy even in Anatolia, let alone in the borderlands o f the Empire. Like other pre­ modem empires - Spain, for example - the Ottoman Empire never integrated its conquests economically and therefore never established a binding link with its colonies. As the Empire was integrated into the world economy, certain of its regions (the Balkans, Egypt, Iraq, and Hijaz) established closer economic links with Paris and London, even with British India, than with Istanbul. Abdiilhamid recognised the weakness o f his Empire and attempted to compensate for it by inte­ grating local ruling groups (Albanian, Arab and Kurdish) into his sys­ tem by according to each certain privileges and measure of autonomy. When the Unionists attempted to restore central authority, they were confronted with rebellions and general discontent, supported in part by some o f the Powers. The Austrians interfered in Albania, the Russians in the Balkans and eastern Anatolia, and the French in Syria. The Unionists were forced to accept reality and adopt limited decen­ tralisation as a policy most likely to keep their Empire intact.6364* The Ottoman Empire differed, however, from other pre-mod­ em empires in that its ruling class made no attempt to integrate con­ quered peoples culturally. The sultans had no policy o f converting the non-Muslims o f the Balkans or Anatolia to Islam or turkifying the non-Turks; the idea o f nationality simply did not exist, and the Turks-at least, the rulers-called themselves Ottomans. All the Ottomans did was to setde small islands o f Muslim Turks in a sea of Christians.66 Over a period of time there were conversions and some cultural integration, but the process never amounted to much. Besides, the m illet system, which was not as watertight as it was once thought to be, could always be resurrected by the leaders o f the religious com­ munities to emphasise and exaggerate the differences between the comunities and erode whatever integration had taken place over the 63

Ahmad, Young Turks, pp. 133 ff.

64

See von der Goltz*s observations and his advice to withdraw to Anatolia, cited in Karal,

Osmanlt Tarihi, vol. VIII, p. 179.

the late ottoman empire

73

centuries. That is what happened in the nineteenth century under the influence of nationalism. The history o f the m illet system dates back to the reign of Mehmed II, known as the Conquerer (1451-81), who, having con­ quered Constantinople in 1453, guaranted the Greek church religious freedom, and to its appointed head, the patriarch, granted full reli­ gious and civil authority over the Greek Orthodox community of the Empire. That bound the patriarch to the sultan since the former's authority over his m illet was entirely dependent on the support o f the latter.65 Later, these privileges were extended to the Armenian and Jewish communities. Until the nineteenth century, the millets had a purely religious character Greeks and Slavs, if Orthodox, were members o f the Greek community, while Armenians formed separate millets depending on whether they were Gregorian or Catholic. By the middle o f the centu­ ry, however the national ideal had begun to penetrate the m illet framework, and the Porte, seeing that as a way to divide the opposi­ tion, recognised a separate Bulgarian Exarchate in 1864.66 It does not require much imagination to see how the Powers could manipulate this system to further their own ends. The millets themselves benefited from foreign protection, especially those individ­ uals who were able to acquire foreign citizenship. But the long-term effects of patronage were disastrous for the Empire and tragic for the communities. The process of patronage began with the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in 1774, which recognised Russia as the protector of the Orthodox m illet. Later, other Powers claimed similar rights to pro­ tect communities with whom they shared a religious affinity. France 65

See the chapter ‘The Dhimmis’ in H . A. R . G ibb and Harold Bowen, Islamic Society and the

West, Vol. I, pt 2 (Oxford 1957), pp. 2 0 7 -6 1 ; Stanford Shaw, History o f the Ottoman Empire and M odem Turkey vol. 1, Cambridge, 1976, pp. 5 8 -9 ; and Lewis, Emergence, p. 335. 6 6 Stanford Shaw and £ . K. Shaw, History o f the Ottoman Empire and M odem Turkey, vol. II, Cambridge, 1 9 7 7 , p. 161. In 1 900, the Serbian petition to be made a m illet was granted by the Porte in order to divide Serbs and Bulgarians in Macedonia. See Sir Charles Eliot, Turkey in Europe, London, 19 6 5 , p. 33 1 .

74

from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

became the protector o f the Catholics, Britain and America of Protestants, so that all non-Muslim millets , save the Jew s, found a Great Power protector.67 Evangelical missionary activity played its role in the process, for that, too, came under the protection o f one Power or the other: M ission schools and colleges were instrumental in introducing modem ideas, especially the idea o f nationalism among non-Muslims and non-Turks, thereby alienating them from the exist­ ing culture and society. Another institution that undermined Ottoman sovereignty was the Capitulations, or extra-territorial privileges enjoyed by foreigners residing in the Empire. Originally these privileges were granted unilat­ erally by the sultan to foreign merchants, and later they were extend­ ed to states whose citizens traded in the Ottoman Empire. The Capitulations arose out o f the same concept as the m illets, and European merchant communities were treated in much the same way as a religious community. ‘Thus, the English were recognised in the sixteenth century as the "Lutheran N ation”, and non-English Protestants were regarded as being under their protection.*68 The English community in the Empire enjoyed virtual freedom from Ottoman law, being subject to its own laws which were enforced by English consular officals in the capital and the provinces. In time this practice designed to facilitate intercourse between Ottomans and Europeans became a burden on the Ottoman state. The Powers could obstruct virtually any measure being considered by the Porte if they felt that it violated their privileges, now considered rights. Thus, the foreign embassies protested against the Law Concerning Vagabonds and Suspected Persons in M ay 1909; it stipulated flogging as a punishment, and they refused to envisage any o f their subjects 67

Feroz Ahmad, ‘Unionist relations with the Greek, Armenian, and Jewish communities in the Ottom an Empire 1 9 0 8 -1 9 1 4 ", in Benjamin Braude and Bernard Lewis (eds), Christians and

68

Jew s in the Ottoman Empire, New York, 19 8 1 , vol. I, pp. 4 0 1 -3 4 . Lewis, Emergence, p. 3 3 5 . Abdiilhamid tried to play o ff Germany against France by recognis­ ing Germany as the guardian of German Catholics in Palestine - a right traditionally enjoyed by France. See Karal, Osmanlt Tarihi, vol. VDI, p. 177.

the late ottoman empire

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being flogged by the Turkish authorities.*9 M oreover the Powers no longer considered the Capitulations as a unilateral grant to be revoked unilaterally by the donor. That was the Ottoman view. The American Ambassador expressed the Great Power view when he responded to the Porte’s note informing him that the Capitulations had been abol­ ished. He stated that ... the capitulary regime, as it exists in Turkey, is not an autonomous institution o f the Empire, but the result o f interna­ tional treaties, o f diplomatic agreements and o f contractual acts o f various sorts. The regime, consequently, cannot be modified in any o f its parts and still les suppressed in its entirety by the Ottoman Government except in consequence o f an understanding with die contracting Powers.6970

Because o f the war, the protests of the Great Powers did not intimidate the Porte; the Powers were in no position to back their threats with force. Thus, once abrogated, the Capitulations would never be restored in their old form. These two institutions - the m illet system and the Capitulations - were most consequential in undermining the authority o f the Ottoman state and hastening its end. The rapid rise o f nationalism among the non-Turkish population would not have been possible without European patronage. W ithout the collusion o f the Powers members o f the non-Muslim bourgeoisie would have been unable to acquire foreign citizenships, thereby being able to evade Ottoman laws and taxes. W ithout this privilege such groups might have tried to fur­

69 Letter no. 5 8 8 from Lowther to Grey, 2 6 July 1 909, FO 371/779/28919. 70

Ambassador Morgenthau to the M inister o f Foreign Affairs, Therapia, 10 Sept. 1 914, in US Department o f State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations o f the United Statet, 1914, Washington, DC , 1 9 1 7 , p. 1093. Ironically, the power that protested most strongly was Turkey’s ally Germany. Ambassador Wangenheim is said to have threatened the Porte in the fol­ lowing terms: *If you persist in suppresing the Capitulations and do not revoke your action, we will abandon the wai^ unite with the Entente powers and turn against you.* Quoted by H . C. Yalçın, Siyasal Antlar, İstanbul, 1 9 7 6 , p. 2 1 6 ; and Cavid’s diary, Tanin, 1-5 Nov. 1944.

7*

from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

ther their interests via the Ottoman state, by supporting its develop­ ment rather than stunting its growth. The active participation o f the non-Muslims would have strengthened both state and economy and perhaps provided the basis o f a multi-national society, and therefore a different end to our story. It is worth noting that the commercial ele­ ments among the non-Muslims were not, by and large, nationalists; their interests were better served in a large multi-national empire than in a small nation state. Thus, the Greek o f Istanbul preferred to live on in the Republic of Turkey rather than move to Athens. But, given the choice o f foreign or Ottoman citizenship, non-Muslims o f this class the Muslims o f this class had no choice - gave up Ottoman citizenship and lived in the Empire as foreign subjects.71 They had every interest in keeping the Ottoman state weak, though not so weak as to bring about its demise. Such a fine balance could not be maintained indefi­ nitely. In the long run it was not possible to hold together an Empire which lacked most of the characteristics necessary for cohesion: a common race, religion, language, culture, geography and economy. The Great Powers accelerated the process o f disintegration by encour­ aging the centrifugal forces in the Empire. One could argue that the Powers propped up the Empire by their failure to agree to a partition scheme. But that was in the nature o f imperialist rivalries. When it became necessary to agree on partition, as in 1915, the Entente Powers did so. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, there was a de facto partition o f the Empire into spheres o f influence, tacit­ ly accepted by the Porte. The Turks never challenged British suprema­ cy in Egypt until they entered the war in November 1914. They asked that Cyprus be returned to them only after Brest-Litovsk when the

71

As Leland Gordon points out, many emigrants from the O ttoman Empire to America lived there just long enough to become naturalised citizens. They then returned to Turkey, where as American citizens they enjoyed the privileges o f the Capitulations which exempted them from local taxation and and military service. See Leland Gordon ‘Emigration from Turkey to the U S',

Levant Trade Review , vol. X V II, no. 2 (1 928), p. 4 1 8 .

the late ottoman empire

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provinces lost to Russia 1878, and in return for which Britain took Cyprus, were regained. Syria, including Lebanon, was recognised as France's sphere, while Russia was grudginly acknowledged as the dominant power in the Balkans and north-eastern Anatolia. The wartime Allied partition plan followed these well-established lines closely, taking into account changed circumstances, such as the inclu­ sion o f Italy. The Unionists intended to restore Ottoman authority wherever possible, but their dreams were rudely shattered by the Balkan Wars. The expulsion o f the Muslim-Turkish population from the lost provinces in Rumelia weakened the impulse for irredentism and forced the Turks to concentrate on Anatolia. That soon led to the awareness o f a narrower nationalism o f the Turks living in Anatolia, the very basis of the republic-to-be. Even thought the Turks fought hard during the war for the Arab provinces, there was a general acceptance of their loss, except for regions where there was a strong Turkish presence as in northern Syria and northern Iraq. This was partly the result o f Anatolian Turkish nationalism taking root, and partly the recognition that Turkey would have to live in a world o f nations. Following the Bolshevik revolution, and what seemed like the break-up of the Tsarist empire, pan-Turanist Unionists toyed with the idea o f setting up a union o f Turkic peoples, mainly in Russia, led by Istanbul. That scheme also ended with defeat and was totally rejected by the nationalists. The Ottoman Empire also suffered from basic structural defects (as was the case with other pre-modem tributary states) which made it unsuited to survive the challenge from the industrial West. The west­ ern challenge was twofold: military and economic. To meet the mili­ tary threat, the entire state structure o f the Empire had to be reformed so as to be efficient. But reform required large sums o f money which the traditional revenue system, geared to simpler needs, could not gen­ erate. By way of example, the old bureaucracy, the scribal service in

y

8

from empire to republic: essays on the late ottom an empire and m odem turkey

1800, had between 1,000 and 1,500 officials on its rolls. A century lately the number o f officials in the reformed bureaucracy has been estimated at between 5 0 ,000 and 100,00ü.72 The treasury o f a declin­ ing economy could hardly provide regular salaries for such large num­ bers, to which ought to be added the ever-growing military establish­ ment. Rampant corruption was inevitable as irregularly paid officials supplemented their salaries with bribes.73 The Ottoman dynasty also appropriated a substantial portion o f state revenues, which it used to maintain its imperial pretensions.74 Had the economy been dynamic, the revenues necessary to finance reform might have been generated from within Ottoman soci­ ety. Western economic domination ended that possibility. Revenues formerly obtained from commerce and manufacturing were substan­ tially reduced after the introduction o f free trade practices in 1838. Initially the landholders benefited because they exported more o f their produce at higher prices. But for the last twenty years o f the nineteenth century there was a slump in farm prices when Turkish produce failed to compete with American grain. Because of the Capitulations the state could not raise a tariff barrier and the farmers had to wait for the upturn in prices which came around 1900. Meanwhile revenues declined, though the squeeze on the peasantry was not relaxed. The peasant’s contribution continued to rise throughout this period. In the

72

Findley, Bureaucratic Reform , pp. 167-8. This massive increase was in part a way for the state to provide employment for Muslim Turks unable to survive in the world o f commerce and man­ ufacturing. In the same way, the state took care to maintain a stable price structure to protect the salaried, bureaucratic class, even though that was (bad economics*.

73

Officals were paid six months a year by the Hamidian regime, and that with difficulty, writes Abdurrahman Şeref, himself an official, minister and historian o f the period. See the new edi­ tion o f his Tarih M uhsahabeleri, Istanbul, 1 9 2 4 , reissued as Tarih Konuşmaları, Istanbul, 1978.

74

In the fiscal year 1 8 7 2 -3 , the royal family consumed 6.1 per cent o f total expenditure, the fourth highest after public debt (4 2 .2 per cent), army and navy (22,1 per cent), and civil administra­ tion (13,6 per cent). See Issawi, Econom ic History , pp. 111-12. This pattem continued up to the 190 8 revolution w hereafter the royal family was given less: 1.4 per cent according to the expenditures for the fiscal year 1 9 1 1 -1 2 . See W. W. Cumberland, ‘Public Treasury* in E. G . M ears (ed.), M odem Turkey , New York, 1 9 2 4 , p. 3 3 9 .

the late ottoman empire

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fiscal year 1872-3 it was estimated at 77 per cent o f total revenue, though ‘the farmers also contributed to the remaining 23 per cent’. By 1903 the direct taxes on land had risen to 84.7 per cent of all revenues, and to 87.2 per cent in 1910.75 The outbreak o f war in 1914 increased the demand for revenues tremendously, and once again the state turned to the peasant.7* One method o f closing the yawning gap between revenues and expenditure was by contracting foreign loans. The Tanzimat states­ men seemed to believe that the Ottoman disease could be cured with a stiff dose o f money, which the Porte’s allies in 1854 were willing to provide. The first loan was floated during the Crimean War; the expenses of the war and the willingness o f her allies were instrumen­ tal in pushing the Porte to borrow V h million gold liras.77 Thereafter foreign loans became the established method o f meeting state expen­ ditures, most o f which were devoted to unproductive ends.78 When the state declared itself bankrupt in 1875, its yearly charges on these debts were as high as 14 million gold liras out o f rev­ enues of about 17 or 18 million gold liras.79 The Porte, unable to meet its obligations to its foreign creditors, was obliged to accept foreign financial control in 1881 under the Ottom an Public D ebt Administration. W ith the example o f Egypt before their eyes, the Ottomans feared that the alternative to the Debt Administration was direct Great Power control. In Egypt, the khedive had actually

75

Reşat Aktan in Issawi, Econom ic History, pp. 110-11. Ahmad, Young Turks, p. 7 0 , gives fig­ ures for 190 9 and 1 9 1 0 which show an increase in taxes which must in part be explained by the upturn in commodity prices since the turn o f the century.

76

The most vivid account o f the exploitation o f the peasantry during the war is in chapter 1, ‘Agriculture and the position o f various classes in the village', o f A. D. Novichev, Ekonom ika

Turtsii a period m inovoi vomi, Leningrad, 1935. 77

According to Fuad Paşa, ‘the Ottoman Empire may be the sick man o f Europe but the cure for his sickness is money*. Quoted in E. Z . Karal, Osmanlı Tarihi, vol. VII, Ankara, 1 956, p. 129. The first loan is discussed in Issawi, Econom ic History , p. 99.

78

See, for example, the budgets cited in n. 71 and 72.

79

Issawi, Econom ic History, pp. 101-2. A more detailed account may be found in D. C. Blaisdell, European Financial Control in the Ottoman Empire, New York, 1929.

8 o from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

appointed an Englishman as Finance M inister and a Frenchman as M inister o f Public Works. Such foreign trusteeship would undermine the independence o f the state even more and had to be avoided at all cost. The Public Debt represented only the bondholders and, as such, was the lesser evil; it could not interfere directly in the affairs o f state - or so the sultan and his advisers believed.80812 In fact, the Public Debt could and did interfere in state affairs because it controlled one-quarter of state revenues. With a bureaucra­ cy larger than the Finance Ministry it was a state within a state, admin­ istering choice revenues so as to pay back both domestic and foreign creditors. Its efficiency was responsible for restoring the Porte’s finan­ cial standing in foreign money-markets, enabling the Porte to continue borrowing abroad. Between 1881 and 1908 the Ottoman Government borrowed 51.5 million liras, receiving 45 million, or 87.4 per cent of the total, at an average interest rate of 4.1 per cent. Borrowing increased, and at higher interest rates, during the troubled times of the constitutional period. Between July 1908 and July 1914, the Young Turks borrowed 46 million liras, o f which they received 39 million, or 84.8 per cent, at an average interest rate of 4.6 per cent.01 Once war broke out the Porte had to turn to her German ally to meet her finan­ cial needs and ended up with a huge debt which might have had disas­ trous consequences for Turkish sovereignty had Germany won the war. One result o f the Empire’s indebtedness and the Public Debt’s hold on its finances was that there was never sufficient capital to invest in order to increase the productive capacity of the economy. To do so, the Porte had to turn to the Public Debt and obtain capital at high rates which the Ottoman state could hardly afford.02 Unable to find money to put into public works, so vital for a desperately needed economic

80

Engin Akarh, ‘Economic problems o f Abdiilhamid’s reign (1 8 7 6 -1 9 0 9 )’, fo.41, unpublished paper based on the sultan's archives. I am obliged to the author for letting me read his excellent paper.

81

Ibid., fos, 4 1 -2 ; Issawi, Econom ic History, pp. 100-6.

82

Akarh, ‘Economic problems’, p. 4 2.

the late ottoman empire

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infrastructure, the Porte was forced to grant concessions to foreign entrepreneurs for, among other things, roads and railways. Such con­ cessions, especially those for railways, which had great economic as well as strategic value to the Powers, became another source of Great Power rivalry and conflict, further eroding the prestige of the Ottoman state.8384 Despite this crippling indebtedness, the Porte continued to devote about 50 per cent o f state revenues to military expenditures a massive drain on an overburdened treasury. The burden becomes greater if the ‘extra-ordinary expenditures’, which were almost entire­ ly devoted to military needs, are taken into consideration.88 M ilitary spending was justified by the growing internal and external threat to te Empire. The growth o f nationalism in the Balkans created potential enemies within Ottoman borders and irredentist states outside. The Porte’s military establishment was intended as a safeguard against such opponents rather than against the Great Powers, whose military strength it could hardly hope to match. The threat was real enough. Between 1878 and 1882 the Ottoman Empire lost 2 3 2 ,0 0 0 square kilometres o f territory and over 6 million in population. The losses o f the Young Turk period, espe­ cially in the Balkan Wars, were much more dramatic. W ithin a gener­ ation the Empire had lost 32 .7 per cent o f its territory and 20 per cent o f its population.85 Again the Ottomans were trapped inside a vicious circle: they spent huge sums to prevent the collapse o f their empire yet that process increased their indebtedness and dependence on the European Powers, and accelerated the pace o f collapse. The relationship between expenditure and imperial prestige must not be neglected. The Hamidian regime naturally attached great importance to it and devoted a considerable sum o f money maintaning it. The Young Turks continued to stress the imperial tradition and 83

Sec E. G . M ears, ‘Levantine concession-hunting*, in his M odem Turkey, pp. 354-83.

84

Akarli, ‘Economic problems’, p. 4 2 .

85

Ibid, pp. 4 8 -9 . The population loss was not as great because o f the expulsion o f Muslims and Turks from territories lost in the Balkans and their migration to Anatolia.

82

from em pire to republic: essays on the late ottom an empire and m odem turkey

the CUP even married some o f its members into the royal family - the m ost fam ous being Enver Paşa. The Young Turks also supported im perial pretensions financially, and grand vezir Hakkı Paşa prom ised th at, while he would cut expenditures, that would never be a t the expense o f the dignity and prestige of the Empire. He added, in his address to Parliam ent, that the Ottoman Empire was a Great Pow er w ith a vast coastline and extensive borders, and that he would give his utm ost attention to the needs o f the army and the navy.M Later, when the m ilitary budget was debated, some Unionists, like Finance M inister Cavid Bey, criticised the high military spending, claim ing th at much-needed reform was being sacrificed to the exigencies o f the arm ed forces. W hen he asked that military spending be curtailed and m ore money devoted to productive ends, War M inister Şevket Paşa replied th at security was the first need o f the Empire and w ithout secu­ rity public w orks and the reorganisation of finances would be a futile exercise. H e asked that the military budget be voted unanimously, so th at everyone might see that the Ottoman nation had resolved to m aintain its power.*7 O nly after the Unionists had seized power in January 191 3 w as the m ilitary budget cut. Ironically, Cavid presented the 1914-15 bud­ get show ing an approxim ate decrease o f 30 per cent in military spend­ ing only tw o months before the outbreak of war. It came before Parliam ent on 4 July and passed without much discussion.8* T he declaration o f mobilisation in August made the m atter entirely academ ic. The Porte now had to borrow huge sums to wage a long and costly war. By 1918, Turkey was so heavily indebted to Germ any that the German ambassador proposed using his n ation’s financial position to make Turkey into Germany’s Egypt.*9 Germ any’s ow n defeat, however, saved Turkey from that unhappy fate.8679 86 87

88 89

Yetti Tanin , 2 6 Ja n . 1 9 1 0 , p. 1, cited in Ahmad, Young Turks, p. 70. Tanin , 1 7 Ju n e 1 9 1 0 , p. 1, in ibid, p. 71. İstanbul, 1 Ju n e and 6 Ju ly 1 9 1 4 . See J . B em sto rff, M em oirs o f Count Bemstorff> New York, 1956, pp. 188, 193-6.

the late ottoman empire 8 3

The relationship between the Ottoman Empire and the European Powers was dialectical in nature. On the one hand, this relationship was destructive and corrosive in its impact on traditional Ottoman society; on the other hand, it provided the very basis for its renewal so as to enable it to cope with a world in rapid change. The destructive elements - the Capitulations, manipulations and the alienation o f the Christian minorities, the loans - have already been considered at some length. Other influences were equally important; without them, the Empire could not have been formed into a viable nation state. It is important to emphasise here Western influences on the ris­ ing national class o f the 1880s rather than the influence o f Western ideas on the ruling class, which resulted in modernising only the state structure to the neglect o f society as a whole. While the rulers accept­ ed the liberal economy o f Adam Smith, the nationalists drew attention to the economic ideas of the German political economist, Friedrich List (1789-1846), who favoured, among other things, state interven­ tion in the economy. Once this idea was adopted by the Young Turks after 1908, they began to create a new social basis for the state. Their success in doing so partly explains the failure o f Britain, France and Italy to carve Anatolia into spheres o f influence. The sultan’s regime in Istanbul might have gone along with this scheme under protest. But it no longer had the broad social basis so necessary for its very survival, since it now served only the narrowest interests. In contrast, the nationalists propounded a new ideology - populism, or halkçtltk adopted from the narodniks via Turkish émigres brom from Russia, and mobilised a national liberation movement whose supporters iden­ tified with the emerging nation state. Overall, however, the OttomanTurkish experience with Europe was a better one and it has left deep scars on the Turkish psyche. Its memory continues to haunt the Turkish people to this day.

Trotsky’s Writings on the Ottoman State, the 1908 Revolution and the Balkan Wars 19 12 -13 : A Review Article

number o f M arxists after M arx have written about the last peri­ od of the Ottoman Empire with great authority. According to M arx’s biographer; Isaiah Berlin, M arx wanted to learn Ottoman Turkish in order to research the history o f the Ottoman Empire. Even though he never learned Turkish he wrote about the Eastern Question in Ottoman History. Later on Rosa Luxemburg also wrote about the financial exploitation of the empire. Parvus Efendi, better known as Alexander Israel Halphand who lived in Istanbul for four years, fol­ lowed her with a number o f writings about the problems of the Ottoman state and society. When we look at those who came before Trotsky we should not be surprised that he wrote about the Balkan Wars 1912-13 which were indirectly related to the issue o f Tsarist Russia and pan-Slavism, and particularly Turkey. These newspaper articles were collected in the sixth volume o f his C om plete W orks published in M oscow at the beginning o f die 1920s dring the years when he was still part o f the Bolshevik hierarcy. These writings were first edited by George Weissman and Duncan Williams and then translated into English By

86

from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

Brian Pearce under the title The Balkan Wars 1912-13 and published in 1980 by Monad publishers in New York. This book has three sec­ tions. Part 1 is the shortest and is entitled ‘On the Threshold or W ar' (3-54). Part 2 , ‘War’ is the longest (57-352). Part 3 is headed (‘Romania after the War’ (355-444). As those who have read his History o f the Russian Revolution and his autobiography My L ife: an Experim ent in A utobiography - know that these chapter also show his mastery over contemporary history. The first two parts, especially the second, is a superb source for those interested in the history o f this period. Trotsky was an objective reporter because he had no prejudice about Muslim Turks or Christian Slavs. He only used his sharp pen against the chauvinists in St. Petersburg. Later on as an atheist Jew he was far removed from the prejudices o f so-called liberal journalists especially the English who carried a crusading Gladstonian mentality and were delighted to see the expulsion of the Turks from Europe. At the same time he was against the prejudices of those Europeans who saw the Turks as ‘noble barbarians' who were fighting the corrupt races o f the Balkans. Trotsky’s only concern was to write down what the saw and heard. But, at the same time, he never tried to hide the disgust o f the bar­ barism o f man towards his fellow man. Trotsky journalistic career began right after the defeat o f the Russian Revolution of 1905 and his escape from a long prison sen­ tence in 1907. He lived in Vienna for seven years and went to France at the outbreak o f the First World War. In 1908 he began publishing in Pravda and also began writing in the journals o f Russian exiles from Tsarist Russia, just like the Young Turks of the Hamidian peri­ od. These papers were smuggled into Russia. But he earned his living by writing under a pseudonym in the Kievskaya Mysl. As the repre­ sentative o f this paper he was able to report on the Balkan Wars. References at the end o f articles indicate that he also wrote for other papers as a syndicated columnist. Trotsky left Vienna on 25 September 1912 and traveled by

trotsky*s writings on the ottom an state, the 1908 revolution and the balkan wars 1912-13: a review article

87

train, reaching Belgrade at the beginning o f October. His first piece appeared in Dyett on 4 October 1912. It will be interesting to write about how Trotsky saw the 1908 Revolution in Turkey before dis­ cussing his observations on the Balkan Wars. His article in Pravda, 30 December 1908 (pp. 3-7) is worth quoting at some length. He begin by writing that "The Russian Revolution [of 1905] has called forth echoes in places far from the borders o f Russia. In Western Europe it has produced a stormy upsurge o f the proletarian movement. At the same time it has drawn the peoples o f Asia in to political life. In Persia, bordering on Caucasia and under the direct influence of the events there, a revolutionary struggle has begun which with varying success has already lasted for over two years. In China, in India, everywhere, the masses are rising against their own tyrants and against the European despoilers (capitalists, missioaries, etc.) who not only exploit the European proletariat but also plunder the peoples o f Asia. The most recent o f the Russian revolution is the revolution that occurred in Turkey this summer.” Later Trotsky goes on to say that "T h e Sultan in Constantinople was in no way inferior to his brother in St. Petersburg, and in many ways surpassed him.” He continues: "The embezzlement and waste indulged in by the Sultan’s bureaucracy., was boundless. All this led to the complete decay o f the state. The capitalists of the European countries were gathering round like so many hungry dogs, each trying to bite off a bit for itself. And Sultan Abdiilhamid went on incurring debts, the repayment o f which was bleeding his subjects white. The people’s discontent had been accumulating for a long time, and under the impact o f the events in Russia and Persia it has now broken out into the open.” Trotsky then explains interesting facts about why the intelli­ gentsia in Turkey played a revolutionary role that workers played in Russia. "In Turkey, however industry exists only in embryonic form, and so the proletariat is small in numbers and weak. The most highly educated elements o f the Turkih intelligentsia, such as teacher engi­

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neers, and so on, being able to find litde scope for their talents in schools or factories, have become army officers. Many o f them have studied in West European countries and become familiar with that exists there-only, on their return home to come up against the igno­ rance and poverty o f the Turkish soldier and die debased conditions o f the state. This has filled them with bittem ess; and so the officer corps is the focus discontent and rebelliousness.” But Trotsky understood the meaning o f the political environ­ ment which was the source o f the creation o f die constitutional regime. He talked about meetings, an active press, strikes, and social­ ist activities. “In Smyrna [Izmir] the first socialist newspaper began publication.” However, Trotsky had concerns about the parliamentary experiment. Referring to the constitutional assembly which was estab­ lished in Russia at the end o f the 1905 Revolution, he said that in the near future this will show the fate o f this “Turkish Duma.” Trotsky understood that the European Powers did not favour the regime change in Istanbul and tried to topple it secredy. “When Turkey shook off the Sultan's despotism and the people themselves took the country’s affairs into their own hands, the European sharks became uneasy. Perhaps the Turks, having strengthened their state would start asking for something to be returned to them” [p. 6]. Here we are confonted with the blind spot o f Trotsky’s approach: his hatred o f the Tsarist autocracy and his life-long dedication to its destruction. He saw that Tsarist government as the principal enemy of constitu­ tionalism. “Russian autocracy [he wrote] is the sworn enemy o f free people throughout the world. N ot long ago the Tsarist colonel Lyakhov personally dissolved the Persian M ajles [parliament] and at the first favourable opportunity the Tsarist government will undoubt­ edly try to strike at the new Turkey. [All these quotation are from the article “The Turkish Revolution and the Tasks o f the Proletariat”, Pravda , 17/30 December 1908, pp. 3-7] Trotsky did not understand that the enemy o f constitutionalism was not Russia the “prison of nationalities”, but Great Britain “the

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mother o f all parliaments.” In April 1909 it was the British embassy which helped the counter-revolutionaries to try and destroy the Committee o f Union and Progress and the new regime. In his next article ‘The New Turkey’, Kievskaya Mysl, 3 January 1909, Trotsky, pp. 9-15). Trotsky discussed revolution and its problems and the following views are given extensively. In its objective meaning, a revolution is a struggle for state power. “The latter relies direcdy upon the army. This is why every revolution in history has put the question bluntly: Whose side is the army on? And answered in one way or the other. In the Turkish revolution and this constitutes its spe­ cial physiognomy the army itself stepped forward as the bearer o f lib­ erating ideas. N ot only did a new social class not have to overcome armed resistance by the old regime but, on the contrary, it had only to play the role o f sympathetic chorus to the revolutionary officers which led their men against the sultan’s government.” Trotsky explains the collaboration between the intelligentsia and the army as follows: "The insignifance o f Turkish industry and the low level of development o f urban culture left the Turkish intelli­ gentsia with hardly any opening apart from service as officers or offi­ cials. Thus, the state organized within itself the militant vanguard of the bourgeoisie nation in formation: the thinking, critical, discontent­ ed intelligentsia” [p. 10]. Later he writes that "the strength o f the Turkish officers and the secret of their success lay not in any brillantly organized plan or dev­ ilishly cunning conspiracy, but in the active sympathy shown them by the advanced classes: merchants” [he should have emphasized that they were Muslim and Jewish merchants! [F.A.] He continues and con­ cludes by saying: "But all these classes bring with them, besides their sympathy, also their interests, demands, and hopes. All their long-suppressed social aspirations are conning out into the open now, when a parlia­ ment has provided them with a centre for their strivings. Better disap­ pointment awaits those who think that the Turkish revolution is

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already over. Among the disappointed will be not only Abdülhamid but also, its seems, the Young Turk party itself” [p. 11]. Trotsky then pointed the fundamental problems faced by the new regime: firstly the question o f nationalities; and secondly the social question. For various reasons he was pessimistic about Istanbul resolving the first question. This is the conclusion he arrived at: “Only a single state o f all the Balkan nationalities, with a democratic, feder­ al basis, on the pattern o f Switzerland or the U.S.A. can bring internal peace to the Balkans and create the conditions for a mighty develop­ ment o f productive forces” [p. 12]. However he noted that the Young Turks had rejected that path. Coming to the social question, Trotsky argued that the peas­ antry had not been taken into consideration by the new regime. “ Carrying the heavy burden o f militarism, subjected to semi-serfdom, one fifth o f them landless, the peasants will in one way or another pre­ sent their account to the new regime.” Evidently the Young Turks hoped that a shake up o f the administration, together with the forms and the procedures of parliamentarism, will by itself satisfy the peas­ ants. They are quite mistaken. The discontent in the countryside with the new order o f things will, moreover; inevitably find reflection in the army, which is made up o f peasants. The soliders’ self-awareness must have increased considerably in the recent months. And if a party that is based on the officers [namely, the Committee o f Union and Progress, F.A.] after giving nothing to the peasants, starts to tighten discipline in the army, it may easily happen that the soldiers will rise against their officers just as, previously, the officers rose against Abdülhamid.” Was Trotsky, writing in December 1908, anticipating the behaviour o f the Istanbul soldiery during the counter-revolution of 31 March/14 Aril 1909? Even though Trotsky was aware that the working class o f Turkey was small and weak, that doesn’t prevent him from including this subject as part o f the social question. He draws attention to the strikes that took place after the restoration of the constitution, to the

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boycott of Austrian goods by the workers, especially the stevedores of the ports, and asks: uHow has the new regime responded to the polit­ ical awakening o f the working class? He gives the following answer: “...W ith a bill imposing forced labor for going on strike. The Young Turk program utters not a word about any definite measures to help the workers. And yet, to treat the Turkish proletariat as a quantité negligible [inconsequential force] means risking some serious surpris­ es. The importance o f a class is never to be estimated by its mere num­ bers” [p. 13]. This, in brief, is Trotsky’s analysis o f the 1908 revolution. A similar analysis is found in his other articles. But Trotsky did not write a great deal about the Ottoman Empire until he went to examine the 1912 Balkan Wars. At the beginning o f October when he arrived in Belgrade he reported on the war during his travels with the Serbian army. “The city has a special air about it-on the alert, like a military camp. Everyone and everything is subordinated to the demands o f the mobilization. M otor cars and cabs drive about almost exclusively on official business. The streets are full o f mobilized men and men about to be mobilized. The shops are emply: there are no customers, and the number o f clerks has been reduced to the minimum. Industry is at a standstill apart from the branch that serves the needs o f mobilization and the coming w ar..” “For ten days already railway travel has been suspended in Serbia: the trains carry only soldiers and war materials. The last Orient Express arrived here on Wednesday [2 October 1912], but instead o f going on tho Sofia returned to Vienna. If Belgrade is an armed camp the railway station is the heart o f this camp. M ilitary authority reigns there exclusively” [pp. 62-3]. From o f the point o f view o f Ottoman history, what a pitty that Trotsky did not observe the war from the Turkish side. He could have left for future generations the description o f Ottoman military mobi­ lization and military life as he did he did for the Serbian and Bulgarian armies. Trotsky’s news about the Balkans is full o f details about all

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sorts o f topics. His interest in writing about the Ottomans and the Ottoman army is o f secondary importance to him. Despite that short­ coming, his reporting is important for seeing the perspective o f the Ottoman side during the wars. So in this article we will try to present this perspective. “First o f all, how did the Serbs see the new Turkey against which they had just declared wan Trotsky interviewed Lazar Pacu (1853-1915), the Serbian finance ministen He was told that that of course they were against the war. W ho does not appreciate the advan­ tages o f peace? Peace means work, accumulation o f wealth, knowl­ edge, culture and who needs all that, Serbia does? But, you see, we have been left with no alternative. You point out that Serbia’s foreign trade has grown in the last four years by more than a third, and you draw the conclusion that the country is capable o f developing eco­ nomically along the path o f peace. But where are the guarantees that this peace will still be open to us tomorrow? Turkey, with all its bloody disorders, is for us not a geographical and political concept, but a near neighbor and a standing threat. Four years experience of the constitutional regime in Turkey has finally convinced us that the Muslims, who constitute merely the military-bureaucratic caste over there, are totally incapable o f creating conditions for peaceful coexis­ tence with the Christian peoples inhabiting the Turkish empire. There are no schools, no courts, no road just the same old chaos as in Abdiilhamid's time: they have merely added to this struggle between parties in parliament, which by itself can do nothing to cure the coun­ try's ills. We have shown patience enough now our patience is exhaust­ ed. Our southeastern frontier is constandy exposed to all sorts of unpleasant surprises. Murders of Serbian peasants and priests, and unending stream o f refugees, whom we have to feed, a continuous series o f frontier dashes-is it possible for the country to live and devel­ op normally under such conditions as these?” (pp. 79-80) Latein Trotsk described the political, economic, and social situ­

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ation in Serbia because o f the similarities between the two. That should interest anyone who studies the last days o f the Ottoman Empire. He says that both lacked the social basis that would support a liberal, parliamentary system. He wrote: “A whole stratum o f semi­ intellectuals has come into being in the towns; though not highly edu­ cated and totally without ideological merits, it is filled with conviction that the future o f Serbia lies in its hands. These declassed elements, standing on the fringe o f the lumpenproleriat, and in any case perme­ ated through and through with a lumpen autlook, are in absolute command o f the Serbian press” [p. 98]. Is not such a description valid for the Young Turks generally, and especially for the Unionists? The reader will have to judge for himself. But the reviewer is convinced that there are many similarities between the two: Finally Trotsky points out that: “The same cause that advanced the officers to the role of executive committee o f the people’s will determine beforehand that sickliness o f Serbian parliamentarism namely, the absence o f sharply defined modern social classes.” "The basis o f the state is too narrow. Capitalism has succeeded in througly smashing the old social formations, but has not yet proved capable of creating new ones in their stead...” "There are many declassed elements in the country and they set their mark on the whole o f its social life. The old conceptions and beliefs have been shattered and new ones have not yet been estab­ lished” [p. 107]. Trotsky only began writing about the war in December 1912. His news is second hand because military correspondents "were not allowed to accompany the army into campaigns and see military oper­ ation from the inside. We have to form our picture o f the army on the batdefields through interrogating participants, with the bias this inevitably impless” [p. 117]. Trotsky spoke to one o f the Serbian officers who fought in the battle and another about the campaigns against the Albanians: “On the day before the declaration o f war [16 October 1912],

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about noon, we learned that Amauts [Albanians] were firing on our frontier posts and my regiment was ordered to go over to the attack at once. With us at the frontier posts were militia men armed with use­ less Russian Berdan rifles. There were about a thousand Amauts* led by İdris Seferi, one o f the right hand men of İsa Bölerini. They had M artinis and Serbian rapid-fire guns which we ourselves had supplied them with at the time o f the Albanian rising [1909]. They got money from us then, too. We wanted to make sure that if it came to war they would march with us. But the opposite happened. Armed with our weapons, the Amauts were the first to attack our posts, and they eas­ ily got the upper hand. Why did this happen? The religious link played its part, o f course, but the main reason was that the Albanians realized that what threatened was a partition of Albania between Serbia and Greece, and they must defend their fields, their huts, and their cattle” [p. 117]. The officer continued to describe the continuing siege o f the Albanians and tried to explain how many of the prisoners were shot. uThe killing o f prisoners is due partly to desire for vengeance for disappointed hopes. But mainly is due to the simple calculation one enemy the less, one danger the less. In the first few days we merely dis­ armed the Albanians and turned them loose. But that was obviously a dangerous thing to do. So we started to take them prisoner But that meant guarding them giving ourselves trouble, and giving them food, when the soldiers themselves were having to go without. The brave and educated among the soldiers never killed prisoners. The cowards however revenged themselves on these unarmed men for their fear they had feet during battle. A lot depend, of course on the comman­ ders. Our brigade commander; Stojan Milovanovic, strictly forbade reprisals against prisoners. In other sector though, the officers them­ selves, shot prisoners mercilessly. “Don’t take this as patriotic boasting, but I must tell you that the Serbian showed him self incomparably more humane if that is the right word than either the Bulgarian or the Greek. Those people went

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through the country like a tornado o f fire. A friend o f mine who was operating with this regiment not long ago near lake D ojran, down towards Salonica, told me that all the places where the Bulgarian army had passed had been turned into a widemess. No human beings or human dwellings everything annihilated, burned, wiped off the face of the earth. The Greeks acted similarly. The little town of Sorovic, for instance, was completely wiped out by them, so that it’s as though it never existed. True, the Greeks say, the Turks burned it. However at Sorovic, besides houses mosques were also destroyed buildings sacred to the Turks - and that’s a sure sign. In the area around Bitoloj [M onastir], where our forces were operating, nearly all the villages have survived, except for the purely Turkish ones” [p. 119-20]. There are many more descriptions and analyses like this in the book. The description o f the Serbian officer show that this war was not just about defeating the enemy but a demographic war what later came to be described as ‘ethnic cleansing’. Demographic warfare that began with the Balkan Wars concluded with the transfer o f population between Greece and Turkey at Lausanne in 1923. The big landowners were driven o ff their land and were forced to escape with the peasants. For example “on a Turkish farm we found 10,000 sheep, and half a million kilograms o f wheat in the bam s. Their houses are finer, with two storeys; and some o f them at Badrovtsi, for instance, near Skoplje [Uskup], have modem farm implements” [p. 123]. How interesting it would be to know the name of this landlord and what happened to him when he resettled in Turkey. The office then destribed the Turkish army struggle for monas­ tir: “In this area the roads were incomparably better Around Bitolj the country was magnificent, almost entirely covered with rice fields. All this was now under a layer of loose snow. We found it very difficult to make our way across the soft surface of the rice fields, our legs sank deep into the mud.” uBut the district had been turned into a wilderness. From Kicevo onward, all the villages have been burned by the Turks: only

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the churches still stand amid the ashes. As a rule the Turks don’t touch churches- churches, priests, or women. Two officials o f our former consulate in Skoplje told me an interesting thing. When our govern­ ment was arming the komitadjis in old Serbia, the revolvers and car­ tridges that passed through the consulate were handed over to priests and women nearly all o f them reached their destination. The Turks don’t search women or priests, nor o f course, the Albanian kochaks or the Ottomanized Serbs (they’re the worst o f the lot), or the real Ottomans, the Turks themselves: they undoubtedly have some ele­ ments o f chivalry” [p. 127]. The Serbian officer gave Trotsky other examples o f Islamic tra­ dition o f Islamic chivalry which called for feeding the hungry even if they were enemy soldiers. “We were starving again. You can't imagine what it’s like to lead starving soldiers, men who have eaten nothing for two or three days on end. One is hungry and debilitated oneself, and conscious all the time o f one's helplessness and of agonizing shame before the sol­ diers. Sometimes a soldier who was not too emaciated he’d had a meal only the day before would go into a Turkish village to ask for bread. “Shame on you” some stoic, half dead form starvation, would reproach him, what will the Turkish say about the Serbian army? A hungry rabble, without bread or pride!” [p. 127] M onastir fell on the 5th of November 1912. “For our victories we are greatly indebted not only to the demoralization o f the Turkish forces but also to chance and to the fog. The 4th 6th regiments man­ aged, or more exactly, had the luck, to get as far as the Biltolj area, into the heart o f the enemy army, and to break it into two parts, push­ ing one o f these southward, towards Fiorina, and the other towards Resen. This decided the whole business” [p. 128]. Why were the Turkish forces under Cavid and Fethi Paşa defeated? According to the officer the reason was that the fire power o f the Turkish was not affective. “They might have swept, us away with ease if their artillery and been even moderately affective, but, for­

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tunately for us, the Turkish shells hardly ever exploded. Nine shells landed on my company’s position, and not a singe one did us the slightest harm. Our specialists have told me that it’s not the Turkish shells but the Turkish gunners are at fault: they can’t calculate, and shoot o ff expensive shells to no purpose. In my battalion between fifty and seventy soldiers were killed, and a good many wounded, but all by rifle bullets: not one was killed by artillery fire, and only two wounded one severely, the other only slightly” [p. 129]. Trotsky pointed out that the defeat o f the Ottoman army changed the balance in the government, within the regime, and under­ mined the position o f Istanbul in the eyes o f the Great Powers. Trotsky notes that the press o f the Great Powers, especially the Austrian and German press, applauded the new military forces formed by the combined armies o f the Balkan allies. The victory o f seven of eight thousand bayonets had a great impact on the exchanges and the foreign ministers o f Europe. In the alliance which would be formed after the war nearly 750,000 Balkan soldiers would take part. This would indicate the policy that the Great Powers would pursue towards the Balkan allies, as well the position the Balkan powers would take towards the Great Powers. Trotsky’s analysis about Istanbul’s search for an ally in Germany in August 1914 partially resulted from its military failure in the Balkans is basically correct. Trotsky’s analysis o f the war between Bulgaria and Turkey is both enlightening and deep. For this analysis, he draws information from an article written by a German military analyst - Ret. Colonel Goedke. He writes that: “He [Goedke] considers that out the fortythree divisions o f her peace time contingent, Turkey can concentrate, in the initial phase o f the war, not more than twenty active divisions or even battalions each against the united armies o f the Balkan allies. This comes to about 3 0 0,000 men with the redifs reservists - if we assume that Turkey raises ten divisions to start with, and twenty laterthis strength army may increase to 4 5 0 ,0 0 0 men, o f whom 360,000

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would be combatants. Goedke gives very low figures for the allied armies: 2 0 0 ,0 0 0 for the Bulgarian army (of whom 160,000 combat­ ants), 120,000 for the Serbian (of whom 95,000 combatants), 55,000 for the Greek (of whom 4 5 ,0 0 0 combatants), together with about 35.000 Montenegrins. Thus to oppose 335,000 soldiers o f the allied armies, Turkey can in the opening period o f war put in the field about 360.000 o f her own. Goedke’s estimates o f the six for the Bulgarian armies are obviously too low by as much as fifty per cent, if not more. It's enough to mention that L e Jeune Turc [The Young Turk] estimates the army o f the allies at 5 0 0,000 600,000 men. The general conclu­ sions drawn by Goedke are, however quite incontrovertible, and are shared by all mature-minded politicians in Bulgaria, as I was able sub­ sequently to confirm: the allies can count on serious military success­ es only in the first period of hostilities, and then only provided they act with vigour they lack the strength for a protracted war-they have thrown in at once everything the possess, while Turkey is still her sub­ stantial reserves from Asia M inor and Syria" [p. 139-40]. Goedke’s analysis turned out to be valid and the Bulgarian offensive was successful in capturing the Turkish fort o f Kirkkilise [Kirklareli] which was sixty kilometers from the Bulgarian frontier east of Edime. Thus it became a base for the Bulgarian army east of Edime, the weakest defended part o f the town from the west all the way to the southest thus facilitating the Bulgarian advance towards Istanbul. Furthermore, while Turkish morale was declining the morale of the Bulgarian soldiers and the people continued to rise. Trotsky pointed out how the press in Sofia shamelessly and with skill twisted the news for propaganda purposes. Later he describes how the prisoners captured in Kirkkilise were brought to Sofia to be used for propaganda. ttThe arrival from Mustafa-Paşa of 320 prisoners (of whom 20 were Orthodox Bulgars, two Armenians, and one a mountain Jew, the rest being Turks) raised still further the morale of the street crowds. The prisoners in red and grey fezzes, were well dressed, not in rags” [p. 159].

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The war correspondents were taken to see and talk to the Turkish prisoners. Trotsky explains this experience with sensitivity but without getting emotional. This account goes on for many pages (182ff). W hat a pity we cannot quote much o f it here because of its length. But the picture that appears before us is that o f an army in shock and in disarray after the 1908 revolution. The Christians were obliged to serve in the army for the first time but “who even previ­ ously felt no moral bond with the army they served in” [p. 193). This is the conclusion Trotsky reached: “The Turkish Army presents a quite different picture. It had no general aims in this war that could have inspired the masses to willing sacrifice. The army had undergone revolutionary upheavals that brought no benefit to the masses, but merely undermined their faith in the permanence o f Turkey, its state forms, and, therefore, its frontiers. The Young Turks brought Bulgars, Greeks, and Armenians into the army, while at the same time doing everything in their power; when they became the rulers o f the Empire, to compel the Christian peoples inhabiting it to transfer to the new regime the hatred they had felt for the old one. Besides this, the inclusion o f Christians in the army inevitably destroyed the belief that Islam is the one and only moral bond between the state and the army, thereby introducing the gravest spiritual uncertainty into the mind o f the Muslim soldier. “Stil more plainly revealed by the prisoners” stories is the dis­ integration o f the Turkish officer corps. Having been raised to power as a result o f universal discontent, the officers immediately set them­ selves in opposition to the most culturally developed groups in the country, namely, the entire Christian population; not even deigning to give their attention to social questions, they cut themselves off from the masses; consequently they were transformed into an exclusive rul­ ing caste that was inevitably doomed to internal decay and degenera­ tion. It is this politically triumphant officer corps that the war has, first and foremost, called to account” [p. 194-5]. Here we observe Trotsky’s brillant analysis; namely Enver

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Paşa’s decision to purge the Ottoman officer corps when he became War M inister in January 1914. Trotsky had foreseen the need for this in December 1912, the date o f his published article. Trotsky interviewed a Turkish office^ describing him as an Infantry Captain R. because the officers asked journalists not to use his name. This interview is interesting but too long to give here ver­ batim. For this reason it will be sufficient to give only Trotsky’s obser­ vations and conclusion: “It is easy to perceive that there is a big difference in cultural level between the captain and the other officers, who are lieutenants and second lieutenants. The captain speaks French fluently, he has the somewhat de-nationalized look o f an educated man, with pince-nez and slim, quick fingers. His comrades seem more like N .C.O.S. One of them, an Anatolian, is apparently not quite clear as to the point o f our visit: he is probably not a very diligent reader o f newspapers” [p. 201]. The examples I gave are only the summaries o f huge amounts o f information from Trotsky’s book, The Balkan Wars 1912-13. The reader should clearly see that Trotsky was not only concerned with the wars but with a lot more besides. His real aim was something differ­ ent. He examines the society, the politics, the economy, and the diplo­ macy in the region which would help the reader understand the wars. In my opinion Trotsky is completely successful in his mission. Even after seventy years there is no other study which improves on his achievement. The aim o f my review is to whet the appetite o f the read­ er to read the English version or lead some enterprising publisher to publish a Turkish edition so as to gain for the book in Turkey the audi­ ence it deserves.

Postage Stamps, Politics and Ideology in the Late Ottoman Empire

he Ottoman state began to use stamps on 13 January 1863; prior to that, since 1840, letters had been priced according to weight and distance with the price written onto the letter. The 1863 stamps were essentially functional, decorated either with the tugra or mono­ gram o f the ruling sultan, Abdiilaziz, or the star and crescent, the sym­ bol o f the caliphate. On some o f the stamps the words Devlet-i Osmaniye Postasi were overprinted suggesting an emphasis on the growing power o f the state and the bureaucracy and away from the sultan. But apart from these features there was no attempt to use stamps for the purpose o f propaganda on behalf o f the dynasty or the empire. This need not surprise us, for other countries (Russia, for example) were no more skillful in utilising their stamps for purposes other than postage.

T

In January 1876, some Ottoman stamps were printed bilingually, in Ottoman and French, with the words EMP OTTOM AN and 10 PARAS instead o f 10 kurus. This reflected the growing integration o f the empire into the European economic and political system, marked by empire’s membership into the Concert o f Europe after the

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Crimean War o f 1854-56. Perhaps the insurrection in Bosnia and Herzegovina which broke out in 1875 prompted the Sublime Porte to draw closer to its European allies and this was but a minor signal o f a further opening to the West. But there was no stamp in December 1876 to commemorate the first Ottoman constitution promulgated just as the Great Powers o f Europe met in Istanbul in December 1876 to consider the future o f the empire, the so-called “sick man of Europe”. Nor was the convening of the first Ottoman assembly in 1877 celebrated with a stamp; Sultan Abdülhamid II who ruled from 1876 to 1909 approved o f neither constitutionalism nor parliamen­ tary government and would hardly want to advertise their existence in his domain. But the Sultan was most conscious of the need to strengthen his empire against the encraochments of an expansive and imperialist Europe. He therefore adopted pan-Islamism as the state’s ideology as a counter force and became the patron o f this movement throughout the Muslim world. This was reflected in a set of six stamps issued in the period 1892-98 which bore the arms and tugra o f Ual-Gazi Sultan Abdülhamid”. But beyond this, there is little worthy of note in the realm o f philately during the Hamidian period. However in 1905 stamps were overprinted with the letter B ( in Ottoman) which stood for B ehie of Behiyye meaning discount. Such stamps were sold to mer­ chants at a discount from their face value to encourage the use of Ottoman stamps in foreign correspondence instead o f the stamps of the various European Powers which maintained post offices in the empire. If this was an attempt to challenge o f circumvent the capitu­ lations, it is strange that this practice should continue after the capit­ ulations were abolished in September 1914. This practice may have been a device to compete against foreign post offices and later to pro­ vide a subsidy to merchants, as states often do even today to users of bulk mail. As in most other areas o f Ottoman life, the constitutional revo­ lution of 23 July 1908 also brought innovations in the political and

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ideological use of the postage stamp. On 17 December 1908, on the day the Ottoman Assembly met after the empire-wide elections, the new regime issued a set of five stamps with the tugra o f Abdiilhamid and the inscription on the banderol “10 Temmuz 1324” (23 July 1908). Then for the next few years, Ottoman stamps failed to reflect any o f the dramatic events that followed. There was no attempt to illustrate the abortive counter-revolution of April 1909, especially the role o f played by Mahmut Şevket Paşa and his Action Army which came from Rumeli to quell the insurrection in the capital. However in december 1909 the post office issued a set o f ten stamps in the tradi­ tional mould: this time the tugra o f Sultan Mehmed Reşad who had replaced Abdiilhamid when the latter was deposed on 2 7 April. The aim o f these stamps may have been to establish the new sultan’s legit­ imacy both at home and abroad. There was litde in 1910 to celebrate with an issue o f stamps. But the Albanian revolts o f 1910-11 and the fear of Austrain inter­ vention o f behalf o f the Catholic M alissori led the regime to send the sultan on a good will mission to appease his subjects. Mehmed Reşad left the capital on 5 June and arrived in Salonica on the 7th. From there he travelled to Uskub (11 June), Priştine and Kosovo (6 June), M anastir (20 June), and Salonica (24 June). Though the imperial post office did not issue a series to commemorate this visit to Macedonia, it merely overprinted sets o f stamps o f the years 1901-1905 with the words “Souvenir o f the Padihshah's Journey”. Under these words, was incribed the name o f each city he had visited - Uskub, Priştine, Manastir, and Salonica - thus constitutiong four sets o f stamps in their honour. Stamps became more political after the Unionist seizure of power on 23 January 1913 though the issue o f M arch 1913, a set of ten stamps in a variety of pastel colours portraying the General Post Office in the capital, did not create that impression. Perhaps the Unionist regime was was still too unsettled, too concerned with the consequences o f defeat in the Balkan War to be imaginative with

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turkey

postage stamps. However the Naval League (Donanma Cemiyeti), an arm o f the Committee o f Union and Progress, also issued stamps though not for the purpose of postage. Three Ottoman warships illus­ trated their set o f five stamps which were sold for the benefit o f the Ottoman navy and the ships the government had order from England. Churchill's confiscation o f these ships in July 1914 was all the more unpopular because ordinary people had subscribed to the fund by pur­ chasing such stamps. (In 1921, the Kemalists surcharged them and used them for postage). The Edime issue of October 1913 was the first strong political statement made by the government. The three-stamp set, illustrated with M imar Sinan’s magnificant Mosque o f Sultan Selim which sym­ bolized the Ottoman-Islamic character o f the city, proclaimed to the world that Edime, recaptured from Bulgaria only in July, was Ottoman (and Muslim) and would remain so eternally. That was a bold statement to make a moment when the Turks were on their knees and Europe seemed capable o f imposing virtually any terms upon them. If the Edime issue was designed to emphasize Ottoman-Islamic character of that city, the Istanbul issue o f 14 January 1914 highlight­ ed the cosmopolitan character o f the empire and the continuity from the Byzantine (Christian) to the Ottoman (Islamic) empire. The themes o f the seventeen stamps in the series are noteworth: 1) the Obelisk of Theodosius in the Hippodrome; 2) the Column o f Constantine; 3) Leander's Tower (Kız Kulesi); 4) the Seven Towers or Yedikule; 5) Fenerbahçe; 6) Rumelihisarı; 7) the Mosque o f Sultan Ahmed; 8) the Monument to the M artyrs of liberty; 9) the Fountain o f Suleyman; 10) the Cruiser Hamidtyei 11 ) a view o f Kandili on the Bosphorus; 12) the War M inistry; 13) a view o f the Golden Horn; 14) the Mosque of Süleyman; 15) the Bosphorus; 16) the Sultan Ahmed Fountain; 17) a portrait o f Sultan Mehmed V. Some o f the themes are purely Byzantine (nos. 1 ,2 and ve 3; 4 perhaps illustrate continuity); some are purely Ottoman (nos. 6 , 7, 9,

postage stamps, politics and ideology in the late ottoman empire

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and 14; and 16); some secular (nos. 5 , 1 1 , 1 3 , 1 5 ) ; while others glori­ fy the Unionist regime (nos. 8, 1 0 , and 12). The portrait o f Mehmed V (no. 17) stands on its own as a bold innovation in an Islamic soci­ ety, perhaps the first Muslim state to place its ruler’s picture on a stamp. Perhaps the omissions are more significant than the commis­ sions. It is conventional wisdom that Turkism (and even pan-Turkism) had become a key element in Unionist ruling circles, especially after 1912. Yet there is no trace o f this ideological trend in the January 1914 issue. Nor is there any attempt to reach out to the Islamic world, to the Arab provinces, for example. This in not to say that these trends were non existent but to suggest that in January 1914 they were far from dominant and that Ottomanism prevailed. It is possibe that the Unionists were being very cautious, determined not to antagonies England, France, and Russia, the three great imperialist powers most directly affected by these two ideologies. In early 1914, the Ottoman state was extremely weak and timid after the shock o f the Balkan War which almost brought about its demise. During these months, the gov­ ernment was struggling to regain its self-conficence and was desperate to negotiate an alliance with one or all o f these powers. By m id-1914, the Unionists were firmly in the saddle and they celebrated the seventh anniversary o f the restoration o f the constitu­ tion as a national fete. The occasion was not celebrated in a similar manner in July 1913, the government being preoccupied with the war and the recapture of Edime from the Bulgarians. However in 1914 the event was commemorated not with an original stamp, but with the issue o f the Monument o f the M artyrs o f Liberty overprinted with the words Id-i M illi and the date 10 Temmuz 1330 . This was repeated in 1916 (Id-i M illi 10 Temmuz 1332) though not in 1915 when the fate o f the Ottoman state and the Turkish people were engaged in a life and death struggle at Gallipoli. The unilateral abolition o f the capitulations which took place in September 1914, an event which was described at the time as being

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from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

even more significant than the restoration o f the constitution, was not celebrated with the issue o f a set o f stamps. Possibly the financial cri­ sis facing the state made that seem a luxury. Instead stamps issued in 1913 were overprinted in black or red with the words “Abolition of the Capitulations 1330”. Until 29 May 1916 the Ottoman postal authorities issued no new stamps. Because o f the permanent economic crisis and the chron­ ic shortage o f money, stamps dating back to the 1880s and the 1890s were used, overprinted with surcharges and a star and crescent with the year 1331 (1915) printed inside the crescent. In 1915, on some stamps the crescent was also inscribed with the words “for the war orphans”, highlighting the huge casulties suffered during the war and which resulted in war orphans becoming a major problem for the state. In 1916 some stamps were overprinted with the words “Sinai peninsula” to commemorate its occupation by Ottoman forces on their way to liberate British-held Egypt. Once the pressure of war eased the Unionists decided to abandon their seige mentality. The set of five stamps with a picture of the old gen­ eral post office o f Istanbul, issued on 29 May 1916, may have been a reflection of this. The stamp catalogue explains that this set was “issued to commemorate the 50th aniversary o f the introduction o f postage in Turkey”. But this explanation is not convincing since 1916 was not the 50th but the 53rd anniversary of the introduction of postage in the Ottoman Empire. Postage stamps were introduced in 1863, and in January not M ay (as the catalogue itself illustrates on p.684). A more likely explanation for the date of issue being the 29th of May is that this is the date o f the anniversary of the conquest of Istanbul, and 1916 was the first time in the war when the regime no longer felt constrained by daunting problems, convinced that the celebration o f such an event would boost public morale desperately low after two dreadful years of wan But the celebration had to be kept low-key so as not to antagonize and provoke into active belligerence a Greece which was already benevolendy neutral towards the Entente powers.

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Between the summer of 1916 and the end o f the First World Wat, Ottoman postal services issued fifteen new stamps, eleven in 1916, two in 1917, and two in 1918. They are as follows: 1 9 1 6 :1 ) Turkish artillery; 2) the mosque at Ortaköy; 3) a light­ house on the Bosphorus; 4) the monument to the Martyrs o f Liberty; 5) a map o f the Dardanelles alongside a portrait o f Sultan Mehmed V; 6 ) another map of the Dardanelles; 7) Istanbul across the Golden Horn; 8) the pyramids of Egypt; 9) Dolmabahçe alongside a portrait o f the sultan; 10) a sentry and a shell; and 11) a portrait o f the sultan. 1 9 1 7 :1 2 ) Soldiers in trenches; and 13) Turkish artillery. 1 9 1 8 :1 4 ) Enver Paşa and Kaiser Wilhelm II on the battlefield; and 15) Aya Sophia and the Obelisk o f the Hippodrome. If we compare this issue with that o f January 1914 it is obvious that the war; as we would expect, has had a great impact on the polit­ ical and ideological thinking. Eight o f the fifteen stamps (nos 1, 5, 6, 7 , 1 0 , 1 2 , 1 3 , 1 4 ) are a direct tribute to the Ottoman army and its suc­ cessful role, especially at Gallipoli. But the ordinary soldier; the peas­ ant from Anatolia, was singled out for his bravery, grit, and determi­ nation; and not the generals. That is significant for the populist self­ perception o f the regime. The Sultan appears in three stamps (nos. 5, 9, and H); he was the dynastic symbol the Unionists continued to exploit in order to maintain, even retain their own legitimacy. This became their strategy once they were a political force after July 1908; it is no accident that they formed matrimonial alliances with the Ottoman dynasty by having prominent and charismatic Unionists like Enver and Ibrahim Hakkı Paşa marry into the imperial household. There are the usual secular symbols (nos. 3, 7, 15) which hemphasize the the cosmopolitan and everlasting character o f the empire, though in this issue we should not be surprised to see the Byzantine element almost disapears from view. It was an open secret that the sympathies o f the Greek population were with the Entente, a fact that could no longer be hidden after the armistice. In 1916 the emphasis was on patriotism, the Islamic current suffered as a conse­

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from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

quence, especially after the Arab revolt o f 1916. Thus Islam found expression only in nos. 2 and 15» though by focussing on the sultan one could not help but be conscious o f his role as Caliph. W hat can we make nos 8 and 14 (the pyramids o f Egypt and Enver Paşa and Kaiser Wilhelm)? The first was a clear expression of Ottoman irredentism towards Egypt, an irredentism the British had come to fear after the constitutional revolution. Now, after their sac­ rifices and their contribution to the Allied war effort, especially the defeat o f the enemy at Gallipoli and the capture o f a British army at Kut-ul-Amara, the Unionists felt that they had earned the right to have their own war aims. One o f these was the restoration o f Egypt to the Ottomans. This point was emphasized to the Germans time and again and it is not surprising that it found expression in a stamp o f 1916. The stamp o f Enver Paşa and the Kaiser on the batlefield makes the same point even more emphatically. By 1918, the Germans were acting with virtual disregard for their ally’s interest. At Brest-Litovsk (1918) when the Bolsheviks were negotiating a separate peace with Germany and her allies, the Turks were forced to subordinate their interests to those of Berlin. Later, the Unionists argued that they should be given the Russian Black Sea fleet a compensation for the losses they had suffered, and the dominant role in the reconstitution o f the Caucasus with the collapse o f Tsarist Russia. But the Germans had their own agenda for this oil-rich region and made no concessions to their ally. The stamp was a reminder, if one were need, o f the alliance which Enver Paşa had come to symbolize. Once again the themes that are missing are as significant as the ones we have attempted to describe. W here, for example, is Turkism and pan-Turkism reflected in this issue? Yet after the collapse of Russia, it would not be surprising if this ideology were reflected in the regime’s stamps. It finds expression in the press but not in the govern­ ment. Even Enver Paşa, who is often described as a pan-Turkist, named the force he led in Türkistan the Army o f Islam (İslâm Ordusu)\ The first expression o f pan-Turkism in stamps in found in a

postage stamps, politics and ideology in the late ottom an empire

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1922 Ankara government issue o f a small ten para stamp with the leg­ endary Gray Wolf. As though to balance their Turkism, the Kemalists also issued a stamp with the declaration o f faith from the Quran (şehadet kelim esi) as well as pictures o f mosques in Edime, Konya, and Urfa; they were after all straggling to win the hearts and minds of Anatolia where Islam was a more potent force than nationalism. From this brief survey, it seems fair to conclude that in the late Ottoman Empire, its postage stamps were only a dim reflection of pol­ itics and ideology. We do not have to look far for the reason; politics were undeveloped and there was an ongoing search for ideology. That was no longer the case in the republic; once the new regime had estab­ lished clear goals these were reflected in its postage stamps. But that is another story. Re f e r e n c e s M . Bülent Varlık, “Bir Yan-Sömürge Olm a Simgesi: Yabancı Posta örgütleri”, in ibid, pp. 1 6 53-56. Nesimi Yazıcı, “Tanzimat Döneminde Osmanlı Posta ö rg ü tü ”, in Tanzimat'tan Cumhuriyet'e

Türkiye A nsiklopedisi, vol. vi, İstanbul 1 9 8 5 , İletişim Yayınlan, pp. 1 636-52. Scott, Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue 1978, vol. iv, Scott Publishing C o.: New York, 1977.

Ottoman Armed Neutrality and Intervention: August - November 19 14

he outbreak o f the Austro-Serbian war in late July 1914 had an immediate impact on the semi-colonial and dependent economy o f the Ottoman Empire. The European Powers ordered the closure of their bourses so as to safeguard their own interests, though this had a

T

detrimental effect on Turkish commerce in cities like Istanbul and Izmir: The business community was in a state o f panic, forcing the Porte to intervene on 31 July. The operations o f the bourse in Galata were provisionally suspended along with all transactions in transfer­ able securities. Navigation companies-predominantly foreign-operat­ ing from Turkish ports suspended their services so that goods could neither leave nor enter the country. Foreign insurance companies refused to insure goods which they feared might be considered constraband o f war and confiscated by the belligerents. The rates for goods they did insure rose sharply and provided merchants with the excuse to charge exorbitant sums for their merchandise. The result was a great increase in the price o f all commodities and this had to be borne by the already hard-pressed consumer. To make matters worse, the predominantly non-Muslim business community exploited the sit­

1 1 2 from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

uation and that was reflected in consumer complaints registered in the press o f the day.1 Panic increased in Istanbul when Germany, Russia, France, and Britain entered the war. There was a run on the banks and, within a few days, about two million liras in gold had been withdrawn.12 Despite the moratorium on payments which went into effect on 4 August, the American ambassador regorted that all banks were con­ tinuing to make cash payments in large amounts.3 So much for the authority o f the Ottoman Government as far as the foreign banks pro­ tected by the capitulations were concerned! The government, alarmed by the profiteering activities o f the merchants, marked by boarding and blackmarketeering, decided to take extra-ordinary measures. Talat Bey, then minister o f the Interior, and Cemil Paşa, the mayor o f Istanbul, set up a commission, headed by Talat, to deal with the problem.4 Bakers who petitioned to raise the price o f bread were forbidden to do so. But there must have been a change o f heart because the price o f bread did rise from 5 no 55 para.5 The capital lived in a constant fear o f shortages and the natur­ al impulse of its citizens was to buy all they could and hoard. “For the past four days (reported Istanbul) the grocers o f our city have been overrun by people who buy four times as much as they need. As a result, grocers and small shopkeepers, having exhausted the greater part of their stocks, doubled their prices fearing that they would be

1

Tanin and the Turkish press, 1, 2 , 3, Aug. 1914.

2

Cavid, “Meşrutiyet Devrine Ait Cavit Bey’in Hatıraları**, Tanin, 17 O ct. 1944. At that time the banks, all foreign owned, were short o f ready cash. Being branches o f some o f the biggest banks in Europe, they were not permitted to import money from their headquarters because o f the war. The depositors lost confidence and stopped making deposits thereby aggravating an already serious situation. See Cavid’s testimony in Harp Kabinelerinin İsticvabı, “Hatıralar ve Vesikalar”: 2 , İstanbul, 1933, p. 163.

3

See thee press o f 3 Aug. 19 1 4 and Taktrim-i Vekayi, 4 Aug. 1 9 1 4 , the date the law was pub­ lished; and Morgenthau to Secretary o f State, Constantinople, 13 Aug. 1914 in Foreign

4

Relations o f the United States (hereafter cited as FRUS) 1 9 1 4 , p. 61. Tanin and Turkish press, 4 Aug. 1914.

5

Ibid, 5 Aug. 1914.

ottoman armed neutrality and intervention: august * novem ber 1914 1 1 3

able to purchase new stock only at prices higher than those they had originally paid.”6 The Porte used threats to intimidate the profiteers and Bedri Bey, a prominent Unionist and commissioner o f police, issued warnings that he would deal severely with speculators in order to guarantee fair prices and an adequate supply o f goods.7 The threats and warnings only increased the panic and both demand and prices rose higher. The government tried a new approach to calm the situaton and declared that there would be no shortages of bread as there was enough flour to feed the capital for a month. Meanwhile, the state was commandeering flour and wheat in the provinces and arrangements had been made to import more grain from Romania. Moreover, the authorities begun to regulate prices and, in order to make sure that shopkeepers obeyed, police were assigned to keep an eye on the market and consumers were asked to call upon them if merchants violated the law. Despite these measures, there were reports o f overcharging; a reporter saw five litres o f parafin being sold for 35 piastres when the price ought to have been half that.8 One may speculate that prices would have risen even more sharply had such precautions not been taken. As it was, prices rose dramati­ cally during the first week of August when potatoes went up 4 0 per cent, Austrian sugar 20 0 per cent, and bread and petrol, whose prices were supposed to the regulated, by 100 per cent.9 War profiteering was one o f the first problems the Unionist gov­ ernment had to contend with. It would also be one o f its last. The fail­ ure to deal with this problem brought disrepute to the entire Unionist organisation which became the vehicle for quick fortunes, creating a new class of war profiteers (harp zenginleri as they were called) masquarading as a bourgeoisie. In August 1914, the profiteers were mainly non-Muslim merchants who served as the clients to their 6

İstanbul, 5 Aug. 1914.

7

Ibid, 6 Aug. 1914.

8

Ibid, 4 Aug. 1 9 1 4 and Y. H. Bayur, Türk İnktlâbt Tarihi, iii/4, Ankara, 1 967, p. 5 2 3 .

9

Constantinople Letter’, 8 Aug. 1914 in The Near East, 28 Aug. 1 914, p. 5 63.

empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

European patrons. Measures against this class were popular and stoked the flames o f a newly-emerging nationalism. In reality the Turkish petty bourgeoisie, whose party was the Committee o f Union and Progress, was envious of this class and could hardly wait to emu­ late its practices which, in Turkish hands, became a method o f capital accumulation.101 If the price o f most commodities rose in August 1914, at least the price o f one commodity, fruit, did not. The European war was responsible for this too, paralysing Turkey’s exports and leaving the summer harvest unsold. Bursa peaches and Aegean grapes were plen­ tiful that year and rotted for the lack o f buyers.11 The stagnation of foreign trade led to large scale unemployment, especially in the port cities o f Istanbul and Izmir, and porters in their thousands were laid o ff to be absorbed into the army after mobilisation was announced on 2 August. They served as cannon fodder in the different theatres of war and also as Unionist militants in the political demonstrations which the CUP organised during the months of neutrality. Throughout the Empire, the European war had the effect of depressing the economy and causing great hardship among the people. This was true o f Bursa, where the local silk industry was hard hit, as of Baghdad whose American consul reported that practically all busi­ ness had come to a standstill and that money was in such short sup­ ply that even the local consular staff could not be paid.12 The situation o f the central treasury was as critical as that o f the general eonomy. The French loan o f 3 5 ,2 0 0 ,0 0 0 liras, negotiated in April 1914 and issued at 85 at 5 per cent, had long been exhausted. 10

Young Feroz Ahmad, “Vanguard o f a N ascent Bourgeoisie: the Social and Economic Policies o f the Yonug Turks 1 9 0 8 -1 9 1 8 ’ in Osman O kyar and H alil İnalcık (eds.), Social and Econom ic

History o f Turkey (1071-1920), Ankara, 1 9 8 0 , pp. 3 2 5 -5 0 ; and Zafer Toprak, Türkiye’de 11

“M illi İktisat’ (1908-1918), Ankara, 1 982. Vice-Consul M orris to Morgenthau, Smyrna, 1 0 Aug. 1 9 1 4 in FRUS 1 9 1 4 , supplement, pp.

12

762 -3 . Brissel to M orgenthau, Baghdad, 9 Aug. 1 9 1 4 ,8 6 7 .0 0 / 7 3 5 ; and same to same, Baghdad, 5 O ct. 19 1 4 , 867.00/738.

ottoman armed neutrality and intervention: august - novem ber 1914 1 1 5

Much of it had been used to pay debts incurred during the Balkan Wars as well as civil and military salaries which had been eight to ten months in arrears when the loan was contracted. According to Cavid Bey, who was minister of finance at the time, “On 21 July [1330] [(3 August 1914)] the state had only 9 2 ,000 liras available as ready cash and it proved impossible for the government to obtain loans from either Germany or Austria-Hungary, or from France and England; therefore, I began to follow a policy o f managing with whatever we had. I reduced current spending as much as possible. I ordered the provinces to pay attention and take pains with [collecting] taxes.”13 From the financial point o f view, this was the worst possible time to order general mobilisation for that made Istanbul totally dependent on any Great Power willing to exploit its financial weak­ ness. Yet, Enver Paşa, who was both deputy commander-in-chief of the armed forces and minister o f war, took this critical step on 2 August. He did not consult the cabinet before making this vital deci­ sion though it was certainly discussed in the inner circles of the CUP, where the real seat o f power lay. Instead, the Sultan was asked to issue an imperial decree ordering mobilisation which was then sanctioned by members o f the cabinet individually. Thus, most ministers were faced with a fait accom plish and had no choice but to append their sig­ natures to a document they did not wholly support.14 On the same day, the parliamentary session was declared closed by another imper­ ial decree and martial law was proclaimed throughout the Empire. TH E ABROGATION OF TH E CAPITULATIONS The alliance with Germany and the CUP government’s policy there­ after can be understood only in light o f the Unionist desire to obtain total independence for the state and society they were in the process of 13

O n Turkey’s critical financial situation see Cavid’s diary for 18 and 2 2 Aug. and 12 Sept. 1914 in Tanin, 2 1 , 2 5 and 2 6 O ct. and 5 Nov. 1944, and his testimony before the tribunal in Harp Kabineleri, pp. 82*3 and 93 ff.

14

Ibid.

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from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

creating. While the European Powers continued to enjoy extra-territo­ rial privileges under archaic and anachronistic treaties known collec­ tively as the Capitulations, Turkish sovereignty would only be a fic­ tion. The Porte could neither reform its finances nor the judicial sys­ tem without the unanimous consent o f all the powers which enjoyed capitulary privileges; such consent proved impossible to obtain. The powers were loath to surrender any privilege no matter how detri­ mental its effect on Turkish society. Andrew Ryan, the last British dragoman, observed in his memoirs: To us it seemed essential to the security o f our nationals to uphold their privileges even in the sm allest cases... In these m atters the capitulatory powers made com m on cause, w hatever their differ­ ences in other spheres. Senior dragom ans m et regularly a t short intervals to discuss m atters o f com m on interest... W e w ere no less tenacious o f our fiscal than our judicial privi­ leges. C oncessions were som etim es made to the Turks, but only subject to the principle th at no new tax could be enforced w ithout our consent... It w as no wonder th at the Turks resented the dis­ abilities imposed upon them .15

The Young Turks concluded that reform and revitalisation of Turkish society would be impossible until they were masters o f their own house. Therefore the first obstacle to be removed was the capitu­ lations. Kamil Paşa, the Anglophile, anti-Unionist grand vezir, promised in 1908 to do so “with the consent o f the powers involved”. In order to achieve this goal the Porte followed the twin policy of reforming the administration, trying to eliminate inefficiency and cor­ ruption, so as to remove excuses for foreign interference. At the same time, the Porte encouraged its officials to disregard capitulatory privi­ leges whenever possible and establish precedents for future evasion. Thus, in January 1909 the government announced that its postal ser­ vices had been reorganised and that it was setting up a new ministry IS

Sir Andrew Ryan, The Last o f the Dragomans, London, 1 951, pp. 34-5.

ottoman arm ed neutrality and intervention: august • novem ber 1914 1 1 7

of Post and Telegraph. At the opening ceremony in July, foreign post offices were denounced for infringing Turkish sovereignty and calls were made for their removal, but to no avail.1* The embassies in Istanbul refused to make any concessions and always provided a united front against any act they considered a breach o f privilege. They objected to the Law concerning Vagabonds and Suspected Persons passed on 9 M ay 1909 because article 13 per­ mitted flogging; they refused to permit their subjects to be flogged by die Turkish authorities.161718 The British ambassador informed the Foreign Office that each law often infringed the treaty rights o f for­ eigners; to prevent that, he proposed that each law, as passed, be examined and action taken on it at required.1* The Turks could make no progress against the determined and united opposition o f the embassies. But they did not give up and become demoralised. When Talat became minister o f the interior on 7 August 1909, he introduced the policy o f interpreting the capitulations as stricdy as possible. This was the outcome o f a growing sense o f nationalism among the Turks who resented their humiliating subjec­ tion to Europe. This sentiment became stronger after Bulgaria declared her independence in October 1908 and Europe recognised her as an equal and immediately abandoned the capitulatory privi­ leges. The Turks could not understand why they did not receive simi­ lar treatment after their constitutional revolution and this left them with a sense o f inferiority and grievance vis-à-vis Europe. Faced with the negative attitude o f Europe, the Turks took a leaf out o f Lord Canning's book and attempted to call in emergent Japan and an increasingly aggressive "new w orld" to balance the power o f “the old”. Japan, which had no diplomatic relations with

16

Lowther to Grey, no. 5 9 4 confid., Therapia, 2 6 July 1 9 0 9 , F.O. 371/779/28925. For a discus­ sion o f Young Turk attempts to abolish the capitulations with the agreement o f the Powers see Feroz Ahmad, The Young Turks, O xford, 1 969, pp. 2 2 and 62-4.

17

Lowther to Grey, no. 5 8 8 confid., Therapia, 2 6 July 1 909, F.O. 371/779/28919.

18

Same to same, no. 6 6 5 confid. Therapia, 4 Aug. 1 909, F.O. 371/779/31623.

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from empire to republic: essays on the late ottoman empire and m odem turkey

Istanbul, was asked to establish an embassy on terms o f equality, that is to say, without demanding capitulatory rights. Japan, having only recently emancipated herself from unequal treaties, agreed to do so, recognising Turkey’s right to recover her own economic and judicial sovereignty. But Tokyo failed to conclude such a treaty since that would have embarrassed the European Powers and affected Japan’s relations with them. As late as M ay 1914, when a Japanese military mission passed through Istanbul, it was rumoured that the visit was related to Japan’s desire to open a legation in Turkey.19 The Porte also approached Washington and in April 1910 asked the US government to agree to the abolition o f the capitulations. The Taft Administration responded by stating that it would consider such a proposal only if the railway concession in Anatolia - the Chester project - was granted to a US citizen. The Turkish ambassador replied that the treatment o f commercial questions under the same rubric as political ones was contrary to the fixed policy o f the Porte.20 Again the attempt to undermine the capitulations had been foiled by the demand for a quid pro quo, this time by a power still new to the game. Despite all Turkish efforts, the powers refused to make any concessions on the judicial front. This was demoralising and frustrat­ ing for both Turkish regimes -Ham idian and constitutional- but it did 19

The Times (London), 13 and 17 Mar. 1 909; and The Orient, v/22, 3 June 1 9 14, 2 1 9 . See also Ahmad, Young Turks, 2 2 , n .l . Senator Batzaria Efendi was perhaps reflecting bazaar gossip in his memoirs when he wrote t h a t “... close relations between the Ottoman state and Japan could not be established because, among other reasons, the latter could not erect a pagoda in İstan­ bul, and Muslims allowed freedom o f worship only to the ‘People o f the Book', that is Christians and Jew s, whereas the Japanese were considered putperest or ‘idol w orshippers'." See Kemal Karpat, “T he Memoirs o f N. Batzaria: The Young Turks and Nationalism”, in

International Journal o f Middle East Studies, vi/3, 19 7 5 , p. 2 8 4 . In fact, there is nothing in Japanese diplomatic practice which suggests that Japan might have sought the establishment o f a pagoda as the price for diplomatic relations. I owe this observation to my friend Prof. Herbert Bix o f Hosei University, Tokyo. 20

Bryce to Grey, nos. 15 and 17 tel. confid., Washington, 15 and 3 0 April 1 910, E O . 371/1009/12897 and 14 10; see also J . A. De Novo, American Interests and Policies in the

M iddle East 1 9 0 0 -1 9 3 9 , Minnesota, 1963, pp. 66-7.

ottoman armed neutrality and intervention: august - november 1914

119

not do too much material harm. The impact o f the financial capitula­ tions was far more onerous for they deprived the Porte of fiscal auton­ omy and made economic reforms impossible. The Turks were not per­ mitted to raise taxes on imports or levy income-tax on foreigners residing in the Empire without the consent o f the Powers. This robbed the Porte o f huge sums in revenue and was an important factor in cre­ ating large deficits in the state budget. There was a larger economic impact in so far as it made local products uncompetitive with foreign imports. For all such goods, the Turks were anxious to have the Powers consent to a modest four per cent increase in excise duty, rais­ ing it from 11 to 15 per cent. But the Powers refused to comply and the Porte was forced to be patient. On 25 April 1907, after long, tedious negotiations, the European Powers signed a protocol agreeing to an increase o f three per cent in import duties (from 8 to 11 per cent) for a period o f seven years. This increase was expected to secure the government about 800,000 liras o f which 600,000 were earmarked for implimenting reforms in M acedonia, 100,000 for the improvement o f Turkish customs houses, and the Porte was permitted to do as it wished with the remaining paltry sum o f 100,000 liras. The Young Turks inherited a chronic financial and economic situation from the Hamidian regime and they knew that they had to resolve it if the new constitutional regime were to be consolidated. The population was too poor and oppressed to bear new taxes which had to be postponed until the country had become more prosperous and capable o f yielding a greater surplus. Meanwile, the Porte had to rely on foreign loans and turn to the only immediate resource available, namely in increase in customs duties, a matter which depended on the goodwill o f the Powers. As soon as the new regime was established, the government broached the subject o f a four-per-cent increase in customs dues with the Great Powers. The question soon ran into the intricate manoeu­ vres o f imperialist rivalries, especially between Britain and Germany. The four-per-cent increase was expected to produce an additional

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2 ,9 0 0 ,0 0 0 liras for the Turkish treasury. Whitehall was unwilling to give its consent to this increase because by the “Additional Convention o f June 1908”, Germany had the right to claim sufficient funds from Istanbul to complete the remaining sections o f the Baghdad Railway. Britain opposed this project since it threatened her hegemony in Iraq, the Gulf, and India. The compromise she offeredwas that she be given control o f the southern-most section of the line, that is to say, the section running from Baghdad to Basra.21 Therefore Britain refused to agree to any increase until she had reached an understanding with Berlin over the railway line, and the Turks could do litde but wait. A favourable resolution o f the Baghdad Railway question was only the first condition for Britain’s consent to the increase in customs dues. Sir Edward Grey also made it known to grand vezir Hilmi Paşa that “our consent to the four-per-cent increase will be considerably influenced by Turkish action” regarding the oil concession in Iraq, which was up for tender and the Tigris Railway Concession, which the British wanted to secure as an alternative to the German line. The British ambassador was asked to “impress upon the grand vezir the extremely unfortunate political effect which would be produced here if this negotiation falls through and if the oil concession goes to a for­ eigner.” In London, Grey put forward Britain’s case before the Turkish ambassador claiming certain concessions as compensation since British trade with the Empire, being the greatest, would suffer most from the four-per-cent increase.22 The Germans, who had much to gain from the increase and lit­ tle to lose, were willing to give their consent. In February 1909, when Austria signed a protocol with the Porte, she agreed to support the

21

B. C. Busch, Brtain and the Persian G u lf 1894-1914, Berkeley, 1 967, pp. 3 06-8 and ff.; E. M . Earle, Turkey, the G reat Powers and the Baghdad Railway, pp. 2 2 6 -9 ; and M arian Kent, British

Policy & M esopotamia 1900-1920 , London, 1976. 22

Grey to Lowthei; no. 6 3 3 tel. confid., Foreign Office, 3 0 Aug. 1 909, F.O. 371/759 and Grey to Tevfik Paşa, Foreign O ffice, 2 3 Sept. 1 9 0 9 , F.O. 371/763/34716.

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Porte’s position on the capitulations in return for the latter's recogni­ tion o f Austria’s annexation o f Bosnia and Herzegovina. Vienna also agreed to the four-per-cent increase as well as the establishment o f a Turkish monopoly in five commodities - petroleum, cigarette papei; matches, spirits, and playing cards.23 The Turks regarded this protocol as the first step in the aboli­ tion o f foreign privilege and the restoration o f Turkish sovereignty. One Great Power had recognised Turkey’s claim s; it was time for oth­ ers to follow. Grand vezir Hilmi Paşa and acting Foreign minister Noradunghian Efendi discussed the matter with the British ambas­ sador in Istanbul. According to his account, they thought that the time had come for Turkey to receive some recognition of the new order o f things under the constitutional regime, and to acquire at least her com­ mercial liberty. "The situation by which small states, such as Bulgaria and Servia, were able to make Commercial Treaties, while a similar right was denied Turkey, was intolerable... It is therefore essential that the fiscal liberty conceded by the Austrian-Turkish Protocol should be sanctioned and adhered to by the other Powers in a Conference.”24 There was to be no such conference and the Porte was left to negoti­ ate with each power separately. Russia was also willing to follow the lead o f the other powers and agreed to give her consent to the four-per-cent increase if they would do so. Therefore apart from Britain, only France placed condi­ tions for its consent. She asked that certain French claims be settled immediately, that French citizens be appointed to provincial customs houses, and that assurances be given that the proceeds from the increase would not be devoted to railway guarantees. The last point backed the British position against Germany.25 The Italians, deter­

23

The Times and Tanin, 19 Jan . 1909. The official tet o f the protocol in Cartwright to Grey, no. 2 9 confid., Vienna, 2 7 Feb. 1 9 0 9 , F.O. 371/752/8210. See also M arian Kent (ed.), The Great

Powers and the End o f the Ottoman Empire, London, 1 984, passim . 24

Lowther to Grey, n o .204 confid., Pera, 2 2 M a t 1 909, F.O. 371/755/11847.

25

M arling to Grey, no .358 tel. confid., Constantinople, 2 4 Nov. 1 9 0 9 , F.O. 371/763/42792.

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mined not to be outdone by their imperialist rivals, waited to see what the others would extract from the Turks before putting forward their own demands for concessions. But with the outbreak o f the TurcoItalian war in October 1911, the Porte cancelled all privileges enjoyed by Italian citizens in the Empire and imposed 100 per cent duty on Italian goods.26 The privileges were restored the following year when the peace treaty was signed, but a precedent had been set. During the first six years o f the constitutional regime, negotia­ tions to abolish the capitulations proved to be totally sterile. By 1914, the Turks had accomplished virtually nothing towards regaining their sovereignty; in fact, their dependence on Europe had increased after the disaster o f the Balkan Wars. They felt better towards the powers but also helpless and in dispair. An article published in Sabah in September 1910 sums up the mood o f the time and therefore bears quoting at some length: N otice [how] foreign consulates have their ow n cou rts, their own police for their own subjects, [how) their dragom ans must be pre­ sent when a case [concerning their subjects] is tried in our courts, etc. O f th at we take no account. I envy Japan her abolition o f these privileges, but I ex p e a to have to w ait for such an event in our country. Everything points to it being distant. N evertheless, I am sure th at it w ill com e. We rely on the efforts o f [our] reform ers and look forw ard to that happy day. But has the foreigner n ot sim ilar privileges in money [financial] m atters? The deliberations o f the em bassies over the additional four per cent custom dues are ju st over. Everybody know s o f the notes sent to the Porte by the legations o f Rom e and St. Petersburg. The incom e-tax did not bear a t all on the foreigner and we hoped to see it consent to . [But] it w as n ot adm itted. W e may w ell draw up schemes o f taxation but how shall they be carried out? M ust everyone o f them be the su b je a o f long deliberations?

26

Tanin and the Turkish press, 8 , 9 , 1 7 , and 18 O ct. 1911. O n Italy’s relations with the Porte see R . J . B. Bosworth’s chapter in Kent, The G reat Powers, pp. 52-7 5 .

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The im portance o f the question [o f capitulations] w ill n ot end here; no tax can be imposed w ithout the assistance o f em bassies. For until it is certain th at the new ta x is not paid alike by foreign­ ers and O ttom ans, the financial privileges o f the foreigners w ill increase. If the new tax is not adm itted, the budget estim ates w ill have to be put o ff and no estim ate for necessary expenditure can be made.27

In the next four years, the Porte made no headway in the nego­ tiations over the capitulations. Had war not broken out it 1914, Turkey would have had to wait a long time before the powers conde­ scended to surrender their privileges, just as the writer in Sabah antic­ ipated. But once Europe was at war, the Unionists, in power since January 1913, seized the opportunity to exploit the situation. As a precaution against a possible attack from the Balkans or a naval thrust through the Dardanelles, the army was mobilised on 2 August and martial law proclaimed throughout the Empire on the same day. The Unionists calculated that the Entente powers were in no position to intervene in Turkish affairs and would appease the Porte in order to keep it neutral. Germany, on the other hand, was putting pressure on the government to implement the secret alliance and enter the war against the Triple Entente. Despite the critical financial and economic situation, there was a mood o f rash confidence among the Unionists. They sensed that they were at one o f those rare historic moments when they had the freedom to act and become masters o f their own destiny. The American ambas­ sador sensed this mood even in early August and reported his fear that Turkey might take advantage o f the general conditions and abrogate the capitulations.28

27

Sabah (Istanbul), 10 Sept. 1 9 10, enclosure in Lowther to Grey, no. 6 7 9 confid., Constantinople, 2 2 Sept. 1 9 1 0 , F.O. 371/1993.

28

Morgenthau to Secretary of State, Constantinople, 7 Aug. 1914, FRUS 1 9 14, supplement, p. 62.

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An editorial in the semi-official Unionist daily Tanin also reflected the mood o f bitterness against Europe. It gloated over Europe’s troubles and called for revenge for all the humiliations the Turks had had to suffer: They would not look a t the evils in their own countries, o r elsewhere, but interfere a t the slightest incident in our borders; everyday they would gnaw at the same part o f our rights and sovereignty; they would performs vivisection on our quivering flesh and cut o ff great pieces o f it. And we, with a forcibly controlled spirit o f rebellion in our hearts and with clenched but powerless fists, silent and depressed, would murmur as the fire burned w ithin: O h, that they might fall out with one another! O h, that they might eat one another up! And lo ! Today they are eating each other up, ju st as the Turks wished they would. W hatever people may say, there is in the nature o f things an essential justice th at w ill at last com e to light. To die benighted and the victim s o f injustice it brings a sm ile on the face and a joyous lightening o f the heart.29

The Turkish press also applauded neutral Japan’s exploitation o f the war to consolidate its own position in East Asia with an ulti­ matum to Germany to evacuate its possessions in China. “W ho can say [asked Tercüman-t H akikat , the ‘interpreter o f truth’ when Japan will do the same to France and England? This all depends on the issue o f the struggle in which the European Powers are engaged. One might object that there is an alliance between Britain and Japan. But what is the value o f such documents in a cataclysm in which the future o f the world is being decided? And is Japan bound to respect a scrap of paper any more than do the European Powers?”30 The Turkish press continued to watch and comment on Japanese activety with great admiration and even envy. The reader of 29

Tanin, Aug. 191 4 quoted in T. Lothrop Stoddard, Present-Day Europe, New York, 1918, pp. 2 6 2 -3 . See also The Orient, v/33, 19 Aug. 19 1 4 , p. 3 2 6 which prints excerpts from the con­ temporary Turkish press showing the same anti-European sentiment.

30

“Orient for the Orientals”, Tercüman-ı H akikat, 2 0 Aug. 19 1 4 ; Tanin, 19 Aug. and Terdiman-

i H akikat, 2 6 Aug. 1914.

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such pieces cannot help but sense the desire on the part o f the Turks to emulate Japan's example. However the Unionist decision to abolish the capitulations was not taken rashly or compulsively by a small clique as, for example, was the decision to sign the alliance with Germany. This was one of the few issues discussed fully in the cabinet, and indeed in the press. The proposal was not controversial in so far as no Turk could possi­ bly oppose it on the principle o f national sovereignty. Nevertheless, Cavid tells us that there was a heated discussion in the cabinet, after which it was decided to have Hüseyin Cahid prepare the note to be presented to the powers and have it translated by Count Ostrorog, the legal adviser to the ministry o f justice. Unfortunately, Cavid does not provide details concerning the differences in the cabinet which led to heated debate. We can only surmise that the more cautious and timid ministers expressed their fears about possible retaliation by the Powers and recommended delay. The more aggressive voices prevailed and the cabinet decided to present the note to the embassies on Wednesday, 9 September.*1 The Turkish case for abrogating the capitulations was simple and straight-forw ard: In form er tim es, the Imperial Ottom an Government had established special rules by which foreigners residing in the Empire were permitted to live. "Subsequently those rules, which the Sublime Porte had decreed entirely o f its own accord, were inter­ preted as privileges... which, on the one hand were found to be in com­ plete opposition to the juridical rules o f the century and to the princi­ ple o f national sovereignty, constituted, on the other hand, an imped­ iment to the progress and development o f the Ottoman Em pire...”3132 31

Cabinet meetings o f 5 , 6 , 7 and 8 Sept. 1914 in Cavid, T