Previous: In Opposition
Part Three: In power
Revolution broke
The July 3, 1908, a military uprising was organized by members of the officers UPC to Monastir and Salonika (Macedonia). Garrison Resna deserted under the command of Major Niyazi Bey , then the battalion Monastir through the young Major Enver Bey took to the bush in the mountains. The soil was favorable: the soldiers were destitute and starving, feeling isolated in the face of terrorism komitacı , worried about rumors of negotiations for the Anglo-Russian partition of Macedonia. The general sent by the Sultan to suppress the revolt was killed on the spot. To the surprise of the latter, sent troops (18,000 men) rallied the insurgents. On July 24 , Abdulhamid II is forced to bow to the claim raised by the Young Turks (who threatened to walk Istanbul on): Restoring 1876 constitution and Parliament .
The event provoked scenes of jubilation, giving rise to a happy hugs among the various Ottoman subjects.
Ottomanism
In November-December 1908 , UPC won elections handily cons Agreement liberal Prince Sabahattin (a political party that was favored by British diplomacy). Despite this victory, had to call the UPC at the government level, with liberal reformers had decided on which to rely, for lack of "better "Abdulhamid II.
Ottomanism The original CUP was no facade. For example, Nicolae Constantin Batzaria , Vlach Macedonian Orthodox, Ottoman became Minister of Public Works in 1913. Brackets, Vlachs and Romanians are Orthodox Balkan surely have had in modern times, the most cordial relations with the Turks, for reasons difficult to establish (although their rivalry with their fellow Slavs are an obvious reason ): Senior officials and scholars Romanian nationalists, however, have often shown a marked respect towards Turks. The
Parliament restored (chaired by Ahmet Rıza ) included: 147 Turks, 60 Arabs, 27 Albanians, 26 Greeks, 14 Armenians, 10 Slavs, Jews 4. A law instituted the conscription of non-Muslims in 1909, the first non-Muslim officers ( Greek, Armenian, Jewish ) were promoted in 1912 . The fact is that the Young Turks have not only incorporated the non-Muslims in the Ottoman army , but has also placed officers in non-Muslim position of superiority over the Muslim soldiers, despite the risks it would induce in conflict with Christian nations. Christian representatives welcomed this very lukewarm military integration: they wanted to ethnically homogenous units, all separate and commanded by Christian officers, we can guess why ... As well explained Dimitri Kitsikis , we can not deny the sincerity and generosity that inspired these reforms Ottomanism connotation: they were so young revolutionaries (many had only their twenties or thirties) and thus somewhat naive. They really believed able to save the empire by the establishment of a community equality of citizens (albeit by methods centralist), a "nation Ottoman " civic unit because they underestimate the significance of the principle of separatist ethnic nationalities among non-Turkish, because the "tyranny" Hamidian the clouded. This naivete is even uncomfortable when we see that they were willing to forgive the crimes of terrorist bloody Dashnak , allowing it to have MPs in Parliament, as if the Dashnaks were respectable only hostile to revolutionary Hamidian absolutism, not the Turks themselves.
1908-1909 were years of intellectual ferment, with a multitude of debates and publications, a remarkable growth of community life, the political police and censorship has been abolished.
But yet there were many shortcomings: Austrian annexation of Bosnia ( September 1908), the continuation of Armenian-Kurdish tensions in eastern Anatolia and bustle of komitacı in Macedonia, and finally a attempted coup fundamentalist.
The cons-fundamentalist revolution of 1909 began with the mutiny 1st Army Corps of Istanbul cons the Young Turks in the night of April 12 to 13 , many Albanian soldiers were involved, as well as officers from the ranks, calling for strict enforcement of the Sharia . The Ôeyh Naksibendi Vahdet and association Mohammedan Union (founded during a meeting at the Ayasofya Mosque, whose newspaper Volkan propaganda was very virulent) were behind. The serious unrest shook Istanbul (sacking of editors of two newspapers Young Turks, the Armenian quarter, Yıldız Palace, killing degreed officer, summary executions of two members) stretched to the provinces, which gave rise to a confusing situation and widespread violence chaotic: for example, hundreds of Armenians were killed in the Adana 14 to 16 April . The UPC
retorted with the 2nd and 3rd Corps of Rumelia , set in motion the night of April 16 to 17 , forming an "action Army ( Hareket Ordusu ) controlled by Mahmut Sevket Pasa (which was not a member of the UPC), assisted Enver and Niyazi Kemal . Istanbul was taken over by the Young Turks April 24, through the participation of volunteers (including Christians). Enver
paid tribute to the men who died for the liberation of Istanbul, before their common grave: the Muslims and non-Muslims. Martial law was proclaimed and the mutineers tried by special courts. It was decided to table Abdulhamid II , suspected, not without reason, to have been involved in the cons-revolution: five members were charged, three Muslims, one Christian and one Jewish (Karasu). It was his brother Mehmet V who succeeded him.
This event began seriously undermined the political moderation hitherto cultivated by the Young Turks, who found themselves obliged to form special battalions to crush the rebel bands. A Adana, many Muslims and Armenians involved in the violence of April were sentenced to death by courts martial.
In addition, the project Ottomanism , when it was on track to achieving policy, found itself facing opposition from various non-Turks : MPs opposed to non-Turkish removing millet (Recognized religious communities) and demanded special status of cultural autonomy. Only decentralization advocated by Sabahattin held in their heart (certainly further weaken the Empire), not the civic egalitarianism itself, which they feared would lead them to be A Turkish. The Young Turks conceived in great bitterness. In response, they forbade political associations ethno-religious ( 1909). The Jacobin centralization cementing the unity of the Ottoman spread of Turkish language in schools and courts was not in itself "Monstrous" or a sign of ethnic intolerance: she was much more sensible from the perspective of the sustainability of the Empire faces pressure from all sides, that decentralization liberal. But non-Turks refused categorically. Accordingly, the Ottomans were hardly tenable.
Defeats recorded during the Italo-Turkish War (1911-1912) in Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and the Albanian nationalist insurgency spring of 1912 (claiming the lives of Niyazi in April 1913) destabilized the UPC (which was focusing his speech on Defence Ottoman territorial integrity): a coup Liberal Anglophile the ousted from power in July 1912 .
The First Balkan War (1912-1913) saw the massive betrayal of the Greek and Bulgarian soldiers just integrated into the Ottoman army. The Serbia, the Greece and Bulgaria (taking advantage of what the Ottoman army was already dealing with Italy and the Albanian insurgents) do not only fought the Ottoman domination in Macedonia but also Islam or rather the presence of Muslims: their design narrow national identity being based on faith (as we have already said), the Serbian army massacred the Muslim Albanian to Shkodra (northern Albania), in Kosovo and Macedonia ( 1912-1913), while the Albania had revolted against the Ottomans (independence proclaimed by Ismail Qemali in November 1912). Among the former Ottoman Balkan, we must highlight the fact that it is only Albanians (mostly Muslim) who did not base their nationalism on confession (Since putting on the same plane Muslims, Orthodox and Catholic). Young Turk civilians deliberately took up arms to defend the Ottoman Macedonia as Talat the muhacir Bulgaria. Loss of Macedonia (definitive May 1913) provoked the arrival of yet another wave of muhacir ( 300,000), whose officers and officials Young Turks and their families who were fleeing killings , rape, maiming and looting armies Orthodox. The Dr. Nazım residing in Salonika, was himself taken prisoner by the Greek army (who invaded the city in November 1912 ) before being released. Obviously, much of the Sephardim of Thessaloniki had no choice but to follow the Turks, given the superstitious pogrom of Orthodox Christians (all those not of their faith were intolerable in their delusional mind ). How could it be otherwise?
On the initiative of Enver and Cemal , arguing that the abandonment of Edirne Bulgarians, a coup was organized in January 1913 : the War Minister Nazım Paşa (to whom he was alleged to be some serious irresponsibility) was shot, and the Grand Vizier Kamil Pasha forced to resign. With this resurgence of the UPC is the military wing and radical right thing, the Committee governing this both directly (but with a grand vizier non-member) does component over the Liberals.
The UPC, on the occasion of discord between the Christian Orthodox, was determined to regain the city of Edirne and Eastern Thrace during the Second Balkan War (June-July 1913) : so was the very security of Istanbul.
Following the assassination of the Grand Vizier Mahmut Sevket Pasha (June 1913), fomented by Liberal , organized opposition was banned. A triumvirate İsmail Enver Paşa together (War Minister), Mehmet Talat Pasha (Minister of Interior) and Ahmet Cemal Pasha (Minister of the Navy) was now firmly the reins of the country. The UPC
long maintained contact with the Dashnak and Greek and Armenian patriarchs , which shows that the abandonment of the line Ottomanism did not happen overnight.
scalded and disappointed Unionists turned gradually and logically to other circles of identification and belonging.
Panislamism
The Young Turks were close Mevlevi Sufi and Bektash (but not Naksibendi ): they seem to have seen currents capable of reviving the Islamic Ottoman . Mevlevi and Bektash helped the Young Turks in their fight against the power Hamidian. The tekke (monasteries) of dervishes served as their meeting places. During the First World War , there was a brigade of volunteers Mevlevi in the Ottoman army , under the command of Ôeyh Veled Çelebi. Unlike Kemalist future (though themselves largely from the Young Turk movement), the Young Turks had nothing against fraternities: many of them, like Talat were Bektashi. The great Sufi mystic was confused with the political ideal of the CUP for dervic hes Young Turk . Moreover, even Şeyhülislam (Grand Mufti) Musa Kazim Efendi was both Bektashi and member of UPC (and Freemason).
They had a new approach to Islamic identity, they left the observation of the need to get out of a sclerotic Ottoman Islam, fatalistic, formalist (since the seventeenth century ), frozen in a grim conservatism, the leaden exercised by the ulema psycho. They wanted Islam to oversee state discharge its archaic obsolete, put in harmony with the rational philosophy of Western Europe and the modern technique. Gökalp and Agayev , concerned about the status of women favored the emancipation of women. The Young Turks were among the first Muslim to grasp the issue of the veil. The Revolution allowed the Muslim feminists to speak, as novelists Halide Edip and guzide Sabri. But they were nevertheless aware of the dissolution of the family unit in the West. Kemal Karpat argued that the Young Turks, including the most secularists as Akçura were not against Islam as such. Even the "moderate Islamist" Bosnian Alija Izetbegovic, in his writings in jail Tito, acknowledged that Gökalp had nothing against Islam itself but only against certain designs "theocratic" and "clerical." For Gökalp , it was not in official Ottoman Islam dull and fussy temperament that expressed the true (idealistic, optimistic, mystic) but in the Turkish popular Sufi Islam . Tekin Alp (apparently more forgiving than the Gökalp ottomanité) had high regard for some Ottoman sultans who demonstrated an open mind, as the conqueror of Constantinople, Mehmet II or reformers Mahmut II and Abdülmecit . As for and Ahmet Mehmet Akif Agayev they were influenced by the Muslim reformism Al-Afghani .
They insisted on the town of Moslemness Turks, Arabs and Kurds . The pan-Islamism originally advocated by Abdulhamid II was recovered by the Young Turks from the Italo-Turkish War (lost), 1911 , where Ottoman military ( Enver Bey ) were see firsthand the combativeness of Libyan Bedouins and the support of the local Sanusi brotherhood . It has gradually strengthened with the Balkan Wars cons-Orthodox Christian armies, then WWI colonial powers against the English and French . He was also a response to articles as protectors of Christians in East claimed that the Tsar and leaders of the Third French Republic . The journal İslam Mecmuası sensitivity expressed pan-Islamist. Experience Young Turk aroused some interest in the Muslim world, from North Africa to the Indus , so England and France feared revolts pan-Islamists in their colonies, following the proclamation of jihad by Şeyhülislam the Ottoman ( November 1914 ).
They maintained close relations with two grand viziers who have close links with the Arab world: Mahmut Sevket Pasa (a Chechen Baghdad, grand vizier in 1913) and Sait Halim Paşa (small- son of Mehmet Ali Pasha of Egypt, the Grand Vizier in 1913-1916). In a congress in Paris in June 1913 , Mithat Şükrü Bleda (Secretary General of UPC ) and Rafik al-Azim (President of the Decentralization Party ) did a spectacular public reconciliation. Shortly before, Ammunation Iskandar, vice-president of the Arab nationalist group, claimed that the Arab nation does not want to secede from the Ottoman Empire. Sati al- Husri , the intellectual Arab nationalism, supported a time the Young Turks, and remained influenced by Gökalp . Wanting to be closer
Arabs, they had nothing against the assertion of Arabism in the Ottoman Empire. Two laws of March 1913 Arab provinces to confer autonomy and sub-parliamentary budget (provincial parliaments). Evidence that the Young Turk Jacobinism cared not to offend the sensibilities of Arab nationalists . The emphasis was on modern education in the Arab provinces, as well as the development of the press. The outreach effort of the Turkish language in schools has not overshadowed the teaching of Arabic literal. İsmail Hakkı Babanzade , spokesman for the CUP, publicly expressed its commitment to the Arabic language as the liturgical language of Islam.
It Palestine, and it is probably no coincidence that Arab Mashreq were the most loyal vis-à-vis the Ottoman authority. The future Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini (half Circassian), volunteered for the Ottoman army for two years (1914-1916), he even obtained the rank of captain. We should also mention the undying loyalty in the Arabian desert , the Chammari Bedouin tribe, under the rule of the Emir Ibn Rashid .
In the Maghreb, Libyan Ahmad al-Sharif, a great master of Sanusi, helped the Turks by attacking from behind the British in Egypt (the anti-Italian in Libya was supported by the Turkish military until 1919).
The Young Turks have proved much harder in the repression of Zionism qu'Abdülhamit II was confined to a few obstacles (also ineffective) against Jewish immigration to Palestine : Talat (which was probably the Triumvir, which gave the most interest in Mashreq ) projected a moment taken from Jews in Palestine (Jews by bumping muhacir ), non-Ottoman Jews (including David Ben Gurion ) were expelled Palestine at the beginning of the First World War, later Cemal was arrested and executed several agitators Zionists (by shooting and hanging) and deported 9,000 Jews from Jaffa north. We must see this severity Zionist taking account of Arab interests, or even the habit of good Muslims unwilling to abandon Gavur (infidels) a Muslim land that houses the third holiest site of Islam ( mosque al-Aqsa ). The British promised the creation of a "Jewish national home " in Palestine in November 1917 ( statement of Foreign Minister Balfour ), following the steps of the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann promised in exchange for a campaign of entry into the war U.S. from the organized American Jewry. The English army at war against the Ottoman army consisted of three battalions of Jewish volunteers from the Zionist "Jewish Legion " of Ze'ev Jabotinsky . Before the war, the Zionist project met the since Tsarist Russia allowed him to get rid of "his" Jews and Orthodox Christian religion led him to consider "deicide." If he participated in Zionist Congress in Hamburg (1909), Moiz Kohen / Tekin Alp (then Ottoman) has never advocated the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine but are only defending Jewish immigration into the Ottoman Empire (and not especially in Palestine). Emanuel Karasu has meanwhile expressed his personal hostility to the Zionist project. These are not the Young Turks who collaborated with Zionism but rather bewildered by this Sharif Hussein, their enemy, whose son Faisal signed an agreement with Weizmann in January 1919 : the Hashemite family and conceded the right the existence of a Jewish state in Palestine alongside a great Arab kingdom (which obviously never saw the day). The Palestinians, who are victims of Zionist violence since 1921, may "thank" deficient Hashemite for their "vision". Rather than sullying the names of the Young Turk triumvirate (what other government has managed Palestine has historically acted as hard against Zionism?), Some conspiracy theorists would do well to consider the game of underworld Party Decentralization who had contacts with the World Zionist Organization since 1913 and who eventually betray its commitments to the Porte during the war (in collusion with the French in Syria). It although "beautiful" to insult all goes, it is still necessary to have concrete evidence to put in the balance.
Moreover, the nationalist Lebanese Maronites, as fetid Gemayel clan (well known to have caused such harm to Muslims of the Levant), have also fought against the Ottomans. In
Syria, Cemal has run Arab nationalists because their activity was anti-Ottoman and in collusion with France, as was proven in documents seized from French consulates in Damascus and Beirut.
The Young Turks (some of them were of Kurdish origin, remember) led the first ethnological research on the Kurds . They sought to discipline the Kurdish militias Hamidiye formed under Abdulhamid II and integrate them into the regular army, which was not an easy task.
Turkism
The Turkishness ( türklük ) in the writings and speeches of the Young Turks was a linguistic and cultural concept. Ziya Gökalp defined membership in the national community as belonging to the Turkish language, culture and education to integrate with society. He contrasted the high culture / classical Ottoman (which he exaggerated the nature Byzantine-Arab-Persian) to the folkloric culture Turkish Anatolia (which he underestimated the size pre-Anatolian Greek). Racial considerations (in the biological sense of the term) were unrelated to the Young Turks, who were yet receptive to ideas circulating in Europe and then Darwinian scientist: the whims of measuring skulls brachycephaly not arrive in Turkey in the 20s -30 (under the influence of the European raciology). The Young Turks were Istanbulites, Turkomans of the Balkans, Albanians, Circassians, Kurds, Turks, Eastern (Tatars, Azeris). Enver Pasa himself had both origins Gagauz (Turkish so) and Circassian. If they had come to speak of Turks as a "race" (as Ernest Renan spoke of "Indo-European" and "Semitic race"), it is certainly not a "purebred "They were perfectly aware, because of their different backgrounds, that people belonging to the Turkic world wide had a wide variety of physical types, despite the continuity of traits" turanism "again perceptible here and there (almond-shaped eyes), explainable by the large absorption capacities Turkic , agglomeration early nomadic tribes non-Turkish (Mongolian, Indo-European Ugric) hordiques in coalitions, the Turkization process (of Indo-European Central Asian, Caucasian, Anatolian, Mesopotamian, Balkan, a process that is preposterous to attribute to the harem elitist or devsirme ), their age-old imperial tradition of openness and ethnic mix, the attractiveness of their agglutinative language.
For them, the relationship between Turks Anatolia and of the East ( Caucasus, Crimea, Volga, Central Asia ) was based on language and folk traditions. They sought to serve the Turkish-Ottoman a language reform to be closer to other Turks. They spoke in magazines Türk Genç Yurdu and Kalemli through a Turkic language purged and simplified, understandable to the Turks in the East.
The Turks were in arrears compared to non-Turks ( Greeks, Bulgarians, Armenians, Albanians, Arabs ) in a spirit of cohesion and community support networks. The Turkish nationalism was very low before the Albanian nationalist uprising of 1912 and Balkan Wars (1912-1913). The recovery of Edirne and Eastern Thrace by the Ottoman army in July 1913 , during the Second Balkan War , enhanced the prestige of the military fringe UPC and feeling excited the Turkish Nationalist. The conflagrations of wars electrified this nationalism.
Where the interests of management, integration and mobilization of the masses: meetings, calls to boycott foreign products. Paramilitary organizations (Like Türk Gücü ) emerged, the youth was brigaded by German concept of "nation in arms". In 1914-1918 , Gökalp lyrically extolled the martial qualities of the Turkish soldier in his poems.
Turkish nationalism amount had an economic component: the desire to create a national economy (Milli İktisat ), an economic elite Muslim place of those Christians and Jews. Concretely, this has led by example to encourage producers Muslims priority access to state orders. Akçura was well placed (son of Tatar industrial) to see if non-Turks controlled the strategic sectors (trade and industry in its infancy) of the Ottoman economy, it was not at all because of a lack of skills Turks but tolerance unheard of Ottoman system. The
Turkism is originally a response to Panslavism and policy of Russification initiated by Tsar Alexander III (but also, to a lesser extent, an imitation of panhellenism of Enosis irredentism and Romanian populations around Vlachs). Activities intellectual Turkist grew after the Revolution of 1908: the association Türk Dernegi (founded in 1909 ), the journal Türk Yurdu ( 1911), the home club / Türk Ocagi ( 1912 ). Initially, this Turkism was primarily cultural in nature and was within the turcologie simple: there was no racism, at least in the negative sense (one Armenian also included among the founders of the Türk Dernegi : Dr. Agop Boyacıyan ). In the literary magazine Kalemli Genç, Ziya Gökalp and Mehmet Emin celebrated poems in their Turkish roots-steppe, old Turkish-Mongol conquerors, the Turan . The Turkism be politicized under the influence of Turkish immigrants from Russia: Akçura Yusuf defended a Turkish political nationalism oriented pan-Turkic soon 1903-1904, being very skeptical about the sustainability of multi-ethnic empires. The Tatar and Azeri Turkism were against the repressive tsarist Russophobes but no: they do not hide in the journal Türk Yurdu , a form of respect for Russian culture and were aware that Russian society (as later Soviet society) allowed Turks Kazan and Baku access to certain educational and economic progress, as well as the intellectual ferment of Western Europe. Ziya Gökalp and Tekin Alp (neither were Turkish sense most ethnically narrow term, which demonstrates the non-racist Turkism) envisagèrent unification of Turkic-speaking territories at the time of military conflict with Russia. It is in the fear of loss of possessions North African, Balkan and Middle Eastern that the ideal Turkism became louder and louder: Eastern Turkic appearing as a field of expansion and promising compensation. The
Georgian Legion was founded on the initiative of the German diplomat Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg in 1915 and incorporated into the Ottoman army (in response to the formation of Armenian volunteer units within the army Russian). Composed of prisoners of war Georgian and North Caucasian Muslim Lazes and it is indirectly related to the project Turkism (junction with the Turkic-speaking areas Caucasus ). In
1918, the Ottoman army commanded by Halil Paşa and Nuri Pasha (respectively uncle and brother of Enver ), turning away somewhat from the Middle Eastern front ( Baghdad and Jerusalem being lost 1917), pushed to the north-west Persia and Baku, in Azeri areas / Turkish-Oghuz.
Moreover, Turanianism (awareness of a Ural-Altaic family) was apparently not there quite absent from the alliance of the Central Powers : the Hungarians within the Austrian Army, the Finnish Rifle Battalion led by the Germans. The
Turkism and Turkism were not ultimately the last born of Spring Peoples that shook Europe, they shall be returned to its historic surroundings.
Impact of Reform
The stock of reforms implemented or attempted by the Young Turks is far from being inconsistent.
At the municipal level: attempt to establish democratic municipal institutions, reorganization of the municipal government of Istanbul , improvement infrastructure and utilities in the city (garbage collection, sewers, fire prevention).
On the land issue: establishment of a system of demarcation and land registration and estimation of their value and income, agrarian reform project.
On economic development: industry development, national economic activities, nationalization, creation of protectionist tariffs for domestic production, encouraging the consumption of local products, development of technical schools.
On the social question: creation of cooperatives of producers and consumers, a national bank credit , measures apparently inspired by the non-Marxist socialism (Proudhon?).
On teaching: development of the school system.
On secularism: secularization of education and justice.
On the Status of Women: certain emancipation of women, with their massive entry into working life during the First World War .
These bold reforms have clearly helped the emergence of a state, economy and society modern Turkish.
The choice of the alliance with Germany
In April 1914, the Ottoman government signed an agreement with Paris : in exchange for a loan, an increase of customs duties and a promise to review capitulations, the France won important concessions on the railways and ports in Syria, as well as new trade privileges. It was much to the disadvantage of the Turks (the French press made no mistake in fact not talking about a division of the Empire into spheres of influence) UPC but believed he had secured his rear by guarantees on the side of France.
Public opinion and a good part of the Young Turks favored the Entente , mainly sentimental Francophilia. Enver , because of his experience as military attache in Berlin was very impressed by the militarism of the IInd Reich and his technical prowess (which is more, the Germany does not colonized Muslim lands). Talat and Cemal were rather turned to France and England . After sounding
France, the Young Turks finally saw in the Ottoman-German alliance (Treaty of Alliance signed secretly August 1914) the best way to get rid of the weight of the chains of semi-colonial Capitulations (repealed in September ) and the Public Debt, and also to counter the Czarist Russia, which was considered the enemy and immediate priority. In February 1914 , they had to accept, under international pressure, a reform plan initiated by the Armenian Russia, which provided for the appointment of general inspectors powerful foreigners in eastern Anatolia . Their apprehension about the Russians tenfold.
is why they accepted the entry of German officers in the army command Ottoman : Field Marshal Colmar von der Goltz (commander on the Mesopotamian front), General Otto Liman von Sanders (commander of the 1st Army Corps in Istanbul and at the Battle of Gallipoli), General Friedrich Kress von Kressenstein (commander during the battle for control of Suez and in the defense of Palestine). The government
Ottoman was eager for battle, to settle accounts with Russia (war started with it in October), the rush was tragically awkward. Kemal , advocating a cautious realpolitik, also much criticized Enver , whom he accused of getting lost in reveries of reckless and risky. Without doubt he would have been better to remain neutral in effect, allow the Tsarist regime rotten (then led by the simpleton Nicolas II) as a rotten fruit falls under the blows of the war to extend the influence of Ottoman Muslims East. Enver (who had Circassian origins, detail which is important) led a disastrous offensive to regain Kars during the winter of 1914-1915 .
Turks struggle for survival of the Empire
By secret Sykes-Picot agreement, Sazonov (May 1916), the Entente powers preparing the dismemberment of the Empire: the England would have Mesopotamia and Palestine, the France the Syria and Lebanon, the Russia the eastern Anatolia and the Straits . The Ottoman government, which was well suspecting the existence of such agreements, has heard through of Russian Bolshevik in January 1918 .
Despite their precarious living conditions, despite the Armenian terrorist fifth columns (on which we will return), the Turkish soldiers made no defect in battle they fought very bravely and selflessly quite admirable (in this sense, the poems glorifying the Gökalp are very far from laughable) alongside their German brothers in arms:
- in February 1915 , Cemal just missed to capture the channel Suez ;
- in August 1915 , Van was taken (to be lost again the following month);
- in December 1915, Mustafa Kemal Paşa routed the Anglo-French in Gallipoli after a long resistance.
The problem was not to look at the Turkish soldier who performed his duty admirably. The problem was the stab in the back planted by an idiot full, less than nothing, without any personal merit, cowardly advantage of his position.
Betrayal Hashemite
Indeed, Hussein, the Hashemite Sharif Hejaz was stupid enough to believe in the Letters and honeyed words of British High Commissioner Henry McMahon and agent TE Lawrence (for information, a degenerate homosexual masochistic tendencies who claimed to have been raped by Turks, probably a sordid fantasies of what bad ass) on a large Arab kingdom under his rule: it is because of this ambition Hussein promoted the "Arab Revolt " against the Turks in June 1916 . Yet the Turks had tried to be conciliatory with the Hashemite family in 1912 by naming Abdullah and Faisal two son of Hussein, deputies in the Ottoman Parliament. The attitude of Hashemites did nothing heroic, contrary to what people want to believe the images d'Epinal Hollywood: being attacked by their Bedouin , while knowing that supported by the British, the path Hejaz railway which was guarded in part by poor Circassians already supporting evil climate of the Arabian desert was within the lowest cowardice of a bunch of pseudo-empaffé computers (remember that it is an "illustrious" heir This clique historically very compromised with the interests Anglo-Zionist, an insignificant dwarf, who massacred Palestinians in 1970). No, it is not very glorious. The Hashemite treason was condemned by a fatwa common several muftis Syrian and Palestinian . Ironically, the Wahhabi Ibn Saud (who had played a minor role in the "Arab Revolt") chase Hussein of Mecca and conquer the Hejaz in the 20s: a cold slap administered to senile fool and despicable.
Return of Armenian terrorism and Russian advance
leaders Dashnak promised the Congress of Erzurum in July 1914 they do not betray the Ottomans for the Russians. Member since dubious promise of Erzurum the Ottoman Parliament , Karekin Pasdermadjian, said Garo Armen, officer leading the Dashnak, rallied the Russian army at the outbreak of hostilities. It was imitated by many Armenian soldiers who deserted en masse with their weapons in hand. In February 1915 , the Bulgarian section of Dashnak offered his collaboration British War Office: their plan was the creation of units Armenian volunteer to take over the Cilicia. As for Hintchak , he took up a position abroad against the Ottomans. From the summer of 1914 , an Armenian revolt had shed blood to Zeytun . In April 1915 in the city of Van , a local Armenian under the direction of Aram Manougian (Leader of Dashnak Van) revolted, took control of the city and began cleaning Muslims (Turks and Kurds) by killing, killings continued with the occupation of the city by the Russians the following month. Elsewhere, Fedai (guerrillas) Armenian armed bands whose had formed and led attacks from 1914, multiplied the massacres against Muslims in 1915-1916 before and thanks to the Russian advance ( battalions of Armenian volunteers including Anatolian Armenians as General Andranik former Dashnak Ozanian , joining them) in other provinces of eastern Anatolia (but also in villages in the region Van ): Erzurum, Mus, Bitlis, Trabzon . In sum, it was back in bloody terrorism Armenian Hamidian period, this time in a time of world war ...
Faced with this situation very alarming that the Ottoman government decided on April 24, 1915 the arrest of 2,000 persons of the movement Dashnak-Hintchak physical and neutralization of some of them : coercion very late (6 months after entry into the war), too late, one might even say. The Young Turks had finally decided not to take them with kid gloves. Their "soft" illusions were selected previously treated as they deserved these committee men Armenians, they had left strutting for years in the capital. The "party" was over.
The Assyrian-Chaldeans also rallied the Russian army and he served as scouts. According to Salah Jmor they were, as the Armenians , involved in mass killings of Muslims.
The Russian army massacred en masse civilians Lazes and Adjara in Batumi region (annihilation of almost all the Muslim inhabitants of the valley Tchorotkhi ). According to George Mamoulia , Moscow planned settlement areas Anatolian occupied by the installation of Cossacks: Armenian the secessionism was nothing but a weapon in the hands of the expansionist mill Bear. Note that January 1913, the Russian government called the Ottoman government did not install muhacir Balkan provinces of eastern Anatolia but Mesopotamia, we understand what his intentions .. . A private letter of to Talat Enver ( May 2, 1915) tells us that the Russians had decided on April 20, 1915 continue to expel Muslims (the Kurds Caucasus ?) sent in Anatolia. The fighting has depopulated areas, insecurity prompting villagers to flee (to the side Muslim Ottoman Armenians to the Russian side).
War demographic
From 1913, the Ottoman government (noting the betrayal of Orthodox Christian soldiers and the final triumph of the stato- nationalism in the Balkans) had finally resolved to organize a political demographic remodeling the Anatolia . After the massive and continuous flow muhacir previous decades (at that moment that roughly one-way), we must mention the novelty of population exchanges. the Bulgarian-Ottoman treaty in September 1913 organized a Christian Bulgarian population exchange (their vicinity, Thrace, with the city of Istanbul worried) and Muslim. The Greek-Ottoman treaty May 1914 also provided such an exchange. the stato-nationalist-Orthodox Christians (Serbian, Greek and Bulgarian) these so-called liberators, even proceeded to exchange of populations between them: with Treaty of Bucharest of August 1913 (ie before the Bulgarian-Ottoman treaty) on Macedonia (divided between Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria), and later the Greco-Bulgarian November 1919. Until the First World War , the Young Turks hoped that the Armenians be held still, and therefore such a population policy would be no need for them: this was not the case, as noted above.
In May 1915
, the transfer of Armenians central and eastern Anatolia (not those of Istanbul, to Izmir and Edirne ) to Syria (Armenian native of ' Aleppo were not either transferred) and Mesopotamia was decided, following insurgency in the city of Van (April). The May 23, by a secret note to sub-prefects Urfa and Zor ( Syria) and the governor of Mosul ( Mesopotamia), the Ministry of Interior gave instructions to officials to ensure a correct reception of displaced Armenians (security of property, supplies). On September 5, 1915 , Talat ordered the governor of Aleppo to ensure supply and protection of displaced Armenians to relocate. Fuat Dündar looked insufficiently still in our view, the question of the categories exempted from the transfer of Armenians: the families of soldiers (unarmed and used in "labor battalions " responsible for road works and Transport, Mr. Dündar does not credit the allegation that the Armenian soldiers were systematically executed after disarmament), artisans, Catholic or Protestant, or even newly converted to Islam were exempted. Mr. Dündar suggests that the vision of the Ottoman government, there was a category of Armenians "loyalists" (military, police). It would thus be a population policy aimed at distract and relocate the Armenian population of central and eastern Anatolia (we shall see its population level for at Muslim), but not to exterminate them (even if there is no doubt that Syria and even more Mesopotamia were semi-desert more inhospitable than the Anatolia). The France, Britain and Russia traditionally so attentive to the Armenian question, the Ottoman government threatened legal action. of the Christian Greek Aegean coast were also displaced, but to within Anatolia .
900,000 Armenians were transferred to the southern Anatolia, the Syria and Mesopotamia after the "Black Book" published by Talat Murat Bardakci : among these, 500,000 were still alive in Syria (Mesopotamia therefore excluded) in February 1916 d According to correspondence JB Jackson (the American consul in Aleppo ) with Henry Morgenthau (U.S. Ambassador to Istanbul ). Note that the Ottoman government did not obstruct humanitarian aid to displaced Armenians, it is as the Consul Jackson was able to observe long the situation in Syria. Regarding casualties, we must take into account emigration Armenian to the West and Russia before the war (300,000 emigrants leaving the Ottoman Empire in all of 1878 to 1914, mostly Christians) and the number of those who have followed the decline Russians during the war ( of hundreds of thousands to Van and other provinces of eastern Anatolia ), and finally those who emigrated after the war (those who took refuge in the Caucasus after the fall of the Armenian Republic in 1920 those who fled to the Levant after the French evacuation of Cilicia in 1921 , etc..). In addition, there are those who died during the winter murderer of 1918-1919 (famine and epidemic typhus), among others. Therefore, the figure of 1, 5 million Armenians "exterminated" (while the total number of Armenians in the Empire before the war did not exceed 1.7 million , according to work Justin McCarthy and Kemal Karpat ) recited by Armenian circles could not be more ridiculous, especially since they also claim that Abdülhamit II (he was surrounded by Darling Armenian!) Would have killed 200,000 to 300,000 alone 1895-1896 (!), And the Young Turks have killed 30,000 to in Adana 1909 (at a time when they had not even taken control of the center of power (!)). We see how outrageous ramblings spiral mired Armenians.
A lamentable carelessness prevailed in the dying Ottoman Empire: famines, epidemics, poverty to bad weather, logistical inadequacies, developmental delay screaming. We have already reported the mortality rate high that struck the Muslim population under Abdulhamid II. In a few years in power, the Young Turks could not hardly deal with this general problem. The soldiers were still underpaid and underfed. Also, all these faults have increased with global conflict (because of the naval blockade Anglo-French, for example), which partly explain the deaths of many Armenians (like that of other Muslims). Erik Jan Zürcher and Fuat Dündar have effectively linked the deportation of Armenians in the dramatic question of muhacir . The Circassians / Circassians dominated the officers Special Organization ( Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa created, drawing on methods of komitacı during the Second Balkan War ), efficient and ultra-violent, responsible to carry out subversive actions (agitprop, espionage, targeted liquidations, sabotage) behind enemy lines (they do not seem to have played a role in the deportation of the Armenians): they must have thought no longer have anything to lose. Similarly, there are many muhacir (from Bulgaria , the North Caucasus ) among architects the deportation of Armenians. In the Muslim atrocities against Armenians, must be part of the heinous crimes of military / police miserable revenge massacres committed by irregulars (Local Kurdish ) marked by the violence of the Armenian and Fedai by muhacir traumatized ( circus). The convoys of Armenians were often the targets of robbers Kurdish tribal areas they passed through. We now know, in the current state of knowledge, there were 1,397 cases of convictions (including death sentences) agents by Ottoman justice Ottoman because of atrocities on Armenians who are liable. The American consul Leslie A. Davis testified that there are 233 court martial filed against Ottoman officials accused of such acts in the region Harput (one wonders if such trials existed among opponents of the Ottomans, including Russians). This is consistent with the posthumous memoirs of Talat, in which he claimed not to have taken punitive measures against perpetrators of systematic atrocities, in a time of war especially cruel and monopolizing resources where they were misunderstood by a Muslim population harassed, but he did what he could. The mentality of
Armenians and Eastern Christians in general ( Maronites, Assyrians, Chaldeans, etc. .) Is not well known in the West where these abound in the diaspora "society" (more or businessmen less mafia, acrobats of Show Business , pseudo "experts", politicos, etc..), and are thus able to incorporate their disinformation influential lobbies: we readily believe their long litany indecent (characteristics of communities culturally uncouth but specializing in trade, if not in outright usury) is sympathetic listening to their endless whining and primary, one pities the ugly faces in front of their priests tacky and primitive, losing sight of that these are just exaggerations of "Oriental" when all they are customary rude (the difference between fantasy and reality is it also very clear in their minds?). Proponents of reverse adversarial, not capable of the least tolerance, perceiving themselves as untouchables (probably because of some obscure reason superstitious), mercilessly self-victimize the Christians of the East do not recognize the extent of killing their own (thanks to outside support, often because deceit is a feature of their nature "Levantine") against the Muslims. Transfer the Armenians to the east, by letting them cross the perilous front lines Russo-Ottoman, would have strengthened the Armenian element in the Caucasus and thus intensified the plight of poor Azeris. Transfer to the South, however, expanded the proportion of Christians in the Levant , and thus indirectly contributed to the great massacres of Muslims (Palestinian, Druze, etc..) In the Lebanon for years 70 and 80 (the Armenian Dashnaks argued Gemayel's Phalange politically when they have not participated in fighting alongside the militia Maronites). We can understand some Arab resentment vis-a-vis the Young Turks. The slaughter of 1914-1918 has killed 2.5 or 3 million Muslims in Anatolia region, one of the world most devastated by this conflict. In the Anatolian territories subject to a time the Russian occupation, a significant decrease in the number of Muslims has been noted, as pointed out by Paul Dumont : leaks and massacres are the cause.
700,000 Turks were also forcibly displaced because of the Russian advance from the "notebook" Talat . In the context of the loss of Macedonia (dear to the heart of the Unionists), a Settlement Act of muhacir was promulgated on May 13, 1913 and a directorate specifically responsible for this installation creates. In a Anatolia which was for decades the receptacle Muslim refugee populations (which could not be without consequences for the regions concentrations of Christians as the Aegean coast and eastern Anatolia ), who was finally caught between the pincers of a vise, the Unionists have set up the goal of forging a block A Turkish Muslim compact and homogeneous policy transfer and installation. Design "criminal"? No, not at all. They had simply accepted the "lesson" of the plight of Muslims Balkans and Caucasus fragmented and scattered. Thus, within 5 years (1913-1918 ) of Kurds, Turkoman and nomadic muhacir "Georgian" (Ajaria) were moved from east to west, muhacir Turkoman, Slavic and Albanian from west to east, muhacir Caucasians (Circassians, Chechens) from Syria and even Syrian Arab families from South to North (a major reason for the success of the "Arab Revolt " in Syria, not to mention that the Syrians had just enjoy being overwhelmed by Armenians), and Libyan refugees who fled the Italian conquest. If there is evidence that the Young Turks did not feed on racial bias against various Muslims in the region (and because, given their own diverse backgrounds). Only the installation of Muslim Gypsies Balkan has been reluctant, but probably for reasons quite other than "racial." Jacobins (by definition fundamentally different ethno-nationalist type völkisch ) and Muslims, they sought to break the particularities ethno-linguistic, tribal, clan among Muslims of Anatolia , allowing them to unite in a common national identity. They took the lead against the "divide and rule" of the colonialists. It was demographically secure Anatolian territory, leaving no outlet for scrubbers irredentist Greek and Armenian colonial powers supporting them: the victory of the latter would have meant a new purge anti-Muslim, in line with those of the Balkans and Caucasus . The reduced Anatolian was last bastion of the Turks : there was a battle that we should absolutely not lose. This Jacobinism was far from being an innovation peculiar to Turkish unionists in the region, we must insist on this fact: Arvanites (Albanians) and were Hellenized Vlachs in Greece, as well as Tzintzars (local Vlachs) were Serbianization in Serbia, it was Christian-orthodox populations considered assimilated by these stato-nationalist (in contrast to Muslim populations hunted ) . Over a third of the total Muslim population of Anatolia was moved by Fuat Dündar . The muhacir could be diluted even more in the mass of the Turkish population they were rejected because their homes by Muslims and Christians executioners calling them "Turks".
Objective: In Baku
1917, the February Revolution overthrew the Tsarist regime . With the October Revolution , the Bolsheviks overthrew turn the government of Kerensky (which was foolishly supported the continuation of the war alongside the Entente ). The Bolshevik government signed an armistice with the Central Powers in December . In March 1918 , the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk Kars-Ardahan restored the Turks. It seemed then we could, in Istanbul, to recover hope about the outcome of the war.
The Russian army had decomposed in the Caucasus, so there was an opportunity to fill the void left. With its oil and its port on the Caspian Sea , the city of Baku offered a great wealth and openness Central Asia. The Army of Islam ( Kafkas İslam Ordusu ) ordered by Nuri Pasha , brother of Enver , penetrated into the Caucasus in 1918 and assist the Nationalist Party Mehmet Emin Azeri Müsavat Resulzade (based Ganja, which was the capital of first independent Republic of Azerbaijan , proclaimed in May ).
Nuri invests in Baku in September . The Muslims of Baku (the Azeris were less well armed than the Armenians and Russian settlers in the Caucasus, and subjected to the distrust of local Bolshevik ) had been victims (again ) of massacres committed by Armenians in March-April 1918 : Baku was then headed by a Soviet bolcho Menshevik-chaired by the Armenian Stepan Shahumyan and stroking in the direction of the bloody coat Dashnaks (distribution of weapons). Azeris réservèrent be an excellent host to the soldiers of Nuri Pasha.
Visiting Berlin, Talat refine projects Muslim states in the Caucasus and Central Asia within a sphere of Turkish influence. But Turkish and German interests diverged in the Caucasus. That's why the march of the Army of Islam had been limited to Baku. the Germans had secretly agreed with the Russian Bolsheviks to oppose what the Baku oil falls into the hands of Turks, Germans, cajoling the Georgian nationalists, had denied that the Army of Islam through the Georgia . As for English who had landed in the city during the summer and had decamped to the arrival of the Turks, they also saw the Turkish advance eastward of a very evil eye.
Armistice Moudros
The Young Turks soon became disillusioned with the victory English Sanora especially the armistice signed by Bulgaria in September . The evacuation of Turkish Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo (October) before the outbreak of the Anglo-Hashemite forces made the inevitable armistice. The triumvirate of leaders lost their power and fled to Istanbul in a German submarine.
With the agreement of Sultan Mehmet VI , the Armistice was signed Moudros by a new government composed of liberal .
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