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Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs
ISSN: 1360-2004 (Print) 1469-9591 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjmm20
The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the
Middle East, 1914–1920
Yücel Güçlü
To cite this article: Yücel Güçlü (2015) The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in
the Middle East, 1914–1920, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 35:4, 580-588, DOI:
10.1080/13602004.2015.1112119
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13602004.2015.1112119
Published online: 16 Dec 2015.
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Date: 21 December 2015, At: 00:39
Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 2015
Vol. 35, No. 4, 580–588
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Review Essay
The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East, 1914–1920
EUGENE ROGAN, 2015
London: Allen Lane
xxvi+485 pp., US$22.64 (pb), 6 maps, 35 illustrations, bibliography, index, ISBN 978-1846-14438-7
Some 97 years later, the First World War (or the Great War, as it was known in
contemporary parlance) continues to haunt the British imagination. Memories of it
are, in effect, still living and breathing. The War is not a closed chapter but a living
past. The history of the First World War is emotionally charged, full of political and
moral meaning, and more than ever reproduced in popular stories and iconic images.
Any persons interested in this war can be forgiven if they are bewildered by the conflict’s
huge bibliography, which has increased enormously since the 1960s, when the fiftieth
anniversaries resurrected popular and academic attention. Keeping up with the literature
is a hard task indeed, particularly when the spectrum of available material is so broad.
Enter “First World War” on the London Library’s computer search function and 890
titles come up. The Imperial War Museum has thousands of Great War diaries, letters,
interviews, and memoirs, as well as its library. There are also Great War archives at
Leeds University, Birmingham University, and King’s College, London.
The recent rush of British publications on the Great War shows no sign of abating. It
has been fueled by the declassification programs of several Western countries and access
to the records of Eastern European intelligence agencies after the political upheavals of
1989–1991. A century after the First World War, scholarly interest in its history
appears to be as vigorous as ever. This centenary, if anything, is marked by increased
attention and publication of a spate of new books. Despite this fact, both professional
military historians and general readers are still poorly informed on the war as waged in
the Ottoman Levant. Eugene Rogan, lecturer in the History of the Modern Middle
East at the University of Oxford and a fellow of St Antony’s College, attempted to fill
this void by his book, The Fall of the Ottomans. He is the author of The Arabs: A History
and Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire: Transjordan, 1850–1921.
The major theme developed throughout The Fall of the Ottomans is that mentioned in
the blurb of the dust jacket:
Despite fighting back with great skill and determination against the Allied
onslaught, and humiliating the British both at Gallipoli and in Kut al-Amara,
the Ottomans were ultimately defeated, clearing the way for the making of a
new Middle East that has endured to the present—with consequences that
still dominate our lives.
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581
Organized both chronologically and thematically, the narrative covers most relevant
features of Ottoman history from 1908 to 1918. The titles of the 13 closely integrated
chapters of the book indicate the breadth of its content: “A Revolution and Three
Wars, 1908–1913”, “The Peace Before the Great War”, “A Global Call to Arms”,
“Opening Salvos: Basra, Aden, Egypt, and the Eastern Mediterranean”, “Launching
Jihad: Ottoman Campaigns in the Caucasus and the Sinai”, “The Assault of the Dardanelles”, “The Annihilation of the Armenians”, “The Ottoman Triumph at Gallipoli”,
“The Invasion of Mesopotamia”, “The Siege of Kut”, “The Arab Revolt”, “Losing
Ground: The Fall of Baghdad, the Sinai, and Jerusalem”, “From Armistice to Armistice”.
Relying mainly on memoirs, diaries, letters, and an array of secondary literature, Rogan
has written with clarity a nuanced, informative history on the participation of the
Ottoman Empire in the First World War and its immediate aftermath. He chronicles
many details at length, not available in American military historian Edward Erickson’s
following three books: Ordered to Die: A History of the Ottoman Army in the First World
War, Ottoman Army Effectiveness in World War I: A Comparative Study and Gallipoli:
The Ottoman Campaign, though Erickson’s works are better analytically. As an Oxford
historian, Rogan considers in length the decisions and activities by the main British
politicians, government officials, and military commanders during the First World
War. He provides extensive coverage of Herbert Henry Asquith and David Lloyd
George (both prime ministers); Sir Edward Grey (foreign secretary); Field Marshall
Horatio Herbert Kitchener (secretary of state for war); Sir Winston Spencer Churchill
(first lord of the Admiralty, chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and secretary of state
for the colonies); Sir Percy Cox (British Resident in the Gulf); Sir Mark Sykes (Lord
Kitchener’s Middle East advisor and co-author of the Sykes-Picot Agreement);
General Sir Edmund Allenby (commander of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force);
General Sir William Robertson (chief of the Imperial General Staff); Lieutenant
General Sir Archibald Murray (military commander in Egypt); Major General Charles
Townshend (commander in Kut al-Amara); Major General Sir Stanley Maude (commander to the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force); Admiral Sir Somerset Arthur
Gough-Calthorpe (commander of the British Mediterranean squadron) and Admiral
Sackville Carden (naval commander in the eastern Mediterranean). Rogan is at his
best when quoting the letters of British and Anzac (Australian and New Zealand) soldiers
fighting Turks at the Dardanelles in 1915.
The account suffers from a number of important deficiences, however. Rogan, who,
while studying relevant documents in Australian, New Zealand and the United States
archives concerning the Dardanelles, Egyptian, and Caucasian fronts, entirely ignores
the voluminous documents found in the Prime Minister’s Office Ottoman Archive
̇
(BOA) in Istanbul
and the Turkish General Staff Directorate of Military History and
Strategic Studies Archive (ATASE) in Ankara. The author contents himself with accepting what Western politicians and military commanders assumed Ottoman attitudes, positions, and policies to have been. Only by using archival material from Turkey can one
hope to counteract this inevitable bias. Anyone interested in the Ottoman Empire’s involvement in the First World War should refer to the BOA and to the ATASE. Authentic
sources are essential to a full understanding of Ottoman and Turkish history, and the
role of the Ottomans and Turks in world affairs. The history of the Ottoman Empire
should not be written without Ottoman sources. It is difficult to imagine how a study
that deals with the effects of governmental decisions on the society can avoid reference
to records or publications of the government in question. When asked, during an
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interview with Nancy Gallagher conducted in 1988, for his advice to students considering
a specialization in Middle East history, Professor Albert Hourani recommended:
At least some of them should learn Ottoman Turkish well and learn also how to
use Ottoman documents, since the exploitation of Ottoman archives, located in
Istanbul and in smaller cities and towns, is perhaps the most important task of
the next generation.1
It should be recalled that Paul Wittek and Bernard Lewis of the University of London,
Franz Babinger of the University of Munich, Jean Deny of the University of Paris, and
Walter Livingston Wright and his successor at Princeton, Lewis Thomas, had earlier
led the way in insisting that students learn Ottoman Turkish and modern Turkish, and
provided the means for this to be accomplished.2
Both the BOA and the ATASE are open to all scholars. There are at least 150 million
documents and 366,000 registers of inestimable value that span every period and region
of the Ottoman Empire in the stacks and vaults of the BOA. They fill more than 75 kilometers of shelves. The BOA is thronged with researchers. Usually several hundred scholars, young and old, Turkish and foreign (including scholars from Armenia and Greece)
are studying there at all times. On 2 June 2013 the BOA moved to its new facilities in the
̇
Kağıthane area of Istanbul,
providing visitors a much larger public research room with
more researcher stations that accommodate laptops, scanners, and other equipment.
No additional fees beyond those for copying are required, even for publication rights,
because all government documents are considered legally in the public domain and
hence freely accessible by all with copyright restrictions. There are no charges for
readers’ passes in archives in Turkey. The experiences of all scholars may serve as instructive examples of benefits that researchers receive when gaining access to the BOA. It is
clear that research opportunities in the BOA are as good and varied as those in most
archives around the world.
The ATASE records attract a great many researchers because its vast assortment of
files reveals information never before available about one of the greatest defining
moments in modern history, the First World War. They offer the researcher a kind of
précis of that war, providing a wealth of research material from every theater of the
Ottoman war effort. The military archival sources at Ankara have been amply used as a
research vehicle by such Western historians as Edward Erickson, Stanford Shaw, Tim
Travers, Harvey Broadbent, Michael Reynolds, Hilmar Kaiser, and Benjamin Fortna.
They were able to use the archival catalogs and to see almost all of the documents they
requested. Drawing on newly available materials from the ATASE, and a sophisticated
reading of these materials in the light of prior scholarship, each of the authors captures
the most fundamental element of contemporary history—the enduring influence of
decisions made at one moment for those living years and decades later.
For the First World War and the Turkish War of Independence periods alone, the
ATASE holdings number 5.5 million documents. But the ATASE remains comparatively unused.
Rogan says access to the ATASE is often denied. He claims that “Large parts of the
collection are closed to researchers, who face restrictions on copying materials” (p.
xvi). However, to the disappointment of this reviewer, it is understood that Rogan has
applied neither to the BOA nor to the ATASE for conducting research during the crafting
of his Fall of the Ottomans.3
One of the best forms of coverage of the Ottoman Empire’s participation in the
First World War is the volumes of official histories published by the ATASE. But
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583
unfortunately these are not used by Rogan. Written in many cases by specialists with early
and almost unlimited access to archives, these are frequently of high quality. The opportunity their authors had to consult individuals who had held key positions no doubt at
times not only led to the smoothing over of criticisms, but also helped illuminate
issues and events which might otherwise have remained obscure. For military historians
of the Middle East in particular, these represent a remarkable treasure chest.4
Curiously enough, Rogan appears not to have employed British and Russian records.
Kenneth Bourne and David Cameron Watt suggest that the British archives are fuller and
much less damaged by the ravages of war and time than the archives of any other major
European power. According to them, the British alone remain accessible and undamaged
by bombing; and in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries British diplomatic
reporting was worldwide in its coverage.5 The bulk of British First World War era
records have been opened, but there are disappointing exceptions. Russian archives are
essential for a comprehensive understanding of Ottoman and Turkish history. This
reality, however, is not sufficiently appreciated by Rogan. Just as the histories of the
Turkic and Slavic people have been intertwined for centuries, so, too are the histories
of the Ottoman and Romanov empires inextricably linked. The Russian empire has
played an outsize role in Ottoman history. It can be fairly stated that the Russians were
the Ottomans’ greatest rivals.
It is surprising not to see references to Western press opinion of the day. Virtually no
use is made of contemporary Ottoman newspapers and periodicals.
Rogan’s discussion of the leading actors responsible for the Ottoman army’s successes
is another problem. In general, his heroes are high-ranking generals, though he gives an
occasional nod to junior officers. His attention to some of these lesser figures provides
some of the book’s best and most valuable moments. He does an excellent job, for
example, of describing the effort of private soldiers. In particular, Rogan draws attention
to the sense of exhilaration that motivates and sustains such individuals. They were
guided by a sense of deep patriotism, knowing that their sacrifices would contribute to
the final victory of the fatherland. The author is less successful, however, in his portraits
of Ottoman statesmen of the time. The book lacks the kind of informed and behind-thescenes revelations about them. His portraits of the triumvirs of the Committee of Union
and Progress (CUP)—Enver, Talat and Cemal Paşas—largely repeat what we already
know. The Fall of the Ottomans does little to extend or deepen our understanding of
these leaders and their struggles. Many scholars have commented on their personal
virtues and high quality of statesmanship. Attention to the works of Şevket Süreyya
Aydemir, Hasan Babacan, and Nevzat Artuç would have assisted us greatly in understanding them.6
Contrary to the assertion of the author, increasingly after 1909, the Ottoman Turkish
language did not displace “Arabic in schools, courtrooms, and government offices in the
provinces of Greater Syria and Iraq” (p. 24). It is incorrect to equate centralization with
Turkification. The Young Turk government’s language and educational policies were
consistent with long-standing practices and did not represent an attempt to achieve
Turkish linguistic or political domination. It was responsive to developments in the
Arab provinces and displayed a willingness to modify policies to accommodate certain
Arab grievances. Disgruntled Arab leaders invented the notion of a Turkification
policy as a rhetorical weapon in their contest for influence with the ruling CUP.
The CUP dismissed some Arabs from administrative positions in order to get rid of
incompetent officials and supporters of the ancien régime and the implementation of
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long-neglected legislation stipulating the use of Turkish in courts was not an attack on
Arabic, but an effort to establish uniform judicial procedures.7
The reader is told of an Ottoman defeat between November 1914 and January 1915 in
̇
the Gulf of Iskenderun
(p. 131). This is far from the case. Indeed, late in 1914, British
cruisers were ordered into action against ports, railways, and bridges in the area in
order to disrupt the unloading of Ottoman military supplies. The Entente warships
̇
shelled Mersin and Iskenderun.
Landing parties were sent ashore to destroy specific
facilities. On the Ottoman side, trenches were dug on the shore and in the Belen Pass
and manned by troops. A battery of 150 cavalry was established in Yumurtalık, and
mines were laid down near there. Entrenchments were dug on all the primary mountain
spurs of the Taurus and Amanus mountains. Fortification work was carried out at
̇
Mersin, Toprakkale, Dörtyol, and on the Iskenderun
coast. During the whole of the
First World War, the Allied fleets continually attacked various strategic points on the Cilician coast, including at Mersin. British and French cruisers made frequent surprise
̇
attacks at Iskenderun
and the vicinity, keeping the Ottoman army in a constant state of
alert. However, their efforts of preventing repair of the railway and controlling the
passage by road of troops and matériel from Asia Minor to Syria via the Belen Pass
were all in vain.8
Rogan says:
The Ottomans never managed to establish a defensive line to put a halt to the
British movement that began on 19 September. The fall of Aleppo on 26
October marked the end of a campaign that had fulfilled all of its objectives.
(p. 380)
Not so. Major General H. J. Macandrew, commander of the British Fifth Cavalry
Division, who entered Aleppo early on 26 October 1918, was soon to experience disillusionment. Twelve kilometers northwest of the city a body of about 2500 strong and wellequipped Turkish infantry, with 150 cavalry and 8–10 guns, took up position astride the
̇
Aleppo-Iskenderun
road. Here the Turks had organized a new defensive position of
strength. At 10:45 am the same day, the British forces, made up of the Fifteenth
Cavalry Brigade and an armored car column and accompanied by Arab rebels, attacked
Turkish positions. British cavalrymen trotted forward and, as they topped a slight ridge,
came in sight of the little village of Haritan and at the same moment came under machine
gun fire. The horsemen in particular suffered severely from intensive and accurate
machine gun fire. They fell back a quarter of a kilometer, dismounted and took up a position straddling the road. Lieutenant Colonel H. N. Holden, the Senior Special Service
Officer with the Jodhur Lancers was killed under heavy fire and the two leading squadrons retired in confusion. The British forces were thus encountered by a stiff resistance
and they were gallantly repelled and speedily repulsed by the toughest defensive fighter in
the world, Turks, with big casualties. These fresh and rested Turkish troops fought their
last important engagement in war fiercely, and the remainder of the Turkish line stood
firm. Despite long and painful retreat to the north, the Turks were still full of fight. In
the last tactical action of the war, Turkish troops had little difficulty in brushing aside
the advancing British Fifteenth Cavalry Brigade.9
Lastly, the Armenian question. In contradistinction to the author’s contention,
Ottoman documents do not suggest that the “ … three Young Turk officials [Talat
Paşa, Dr. Nazım and Bahaettin Şakir] made key decisions initiating the annihilation of
the Armenian community of Turkey between February and March 1915” (pp. 164–
165). These leaders did not order or plan the annihilation of the Armenian population
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585
in 1915; they ordered the relocation of the Armenians from areas made sensitive by the
progress of war. The Ottoman government had to secure its position by removing the
Armenians from strategic points where they could aid the enemy and were attacking
the civilian population. The plan was necessitated by the exigencies of national survival.
The Ottoman Empire was engaged in a tremendous struggle against overwhelming odds,
fighting for its very life. The Armenians were plotting with the enemy and preparing
internal disturbances; therefore, their removal was necessary in order to render them
harmless. However, great care was taken by the authorities to prevent the Armenians
from being harmed during the relocations. Since the relocations took place at a time of
severe shortages of vehicles, food, fuel, clothing, and other supplies through the entire
country, many Armenians died between 1915 and 1918. However, it must be noted
that the death rate for Armenians was no greater than that of the Turks, who died as a
result of the same conditions in the same places, at the same time. Indeed, far from
encouraging the killings of civilians by gendarmes or irregular forces, the Ottoman Ministry of the Interior sent repeated orders that all measures be taken to uncover and punish
such acts.
̇
When discussing the trials of the post-war courts martial in Istanbul,
Rogan’s account
is unconvincing (pp. 388–389). By all accounts, the primary reason for convening military tribunals was pressure from the Allied Powers, which insisted on retributions for
the Armenian killings. The Ottoman government of the day also hoped that by placing
blame on a few members of the CUP, they might receive more lenient treatment at the
Paris Peace Conference. Given these pressures, the trials were hardly definitive as factfinding panels. For example, the tribunals lacked the basic requirements of due
process. The right of cross-examination was not acknowledged. The judge weighed the
probative value of all evidence submitted during the prepatory phase and during the
trial, and he questioned the accused. At the trials, the presiding officer acted more like
a prosecutor than an impartial judge. Defense counsel was barred access to pre-trial
investigatory files and from accompanying their clients to pre-trial interrogations.
According to trial transcripts, although charges of mistreatment of Armenians were
leveled, a majority of the charges and convictions were mainly motivated by political retribution, related not to crimes against civilians, but to the management or mismanagement
of the war. Four members of the principal military tribunal were later arrested by the government on charges of contravening judicial procedure. The ultimate value of the evidence is best appreciated by a single point: When the British government considered
holding trials of alleged Ottoman war criminals in Malta, it declined to use any evidence
developed by the courts martial of 1919–1920.10
Almost no light is shed in The Fall of the Ottomans on the endeavors of Cemal Paşa,
commander of the Fourth Army in Sinai, Palestine, and Syria, and governor-general of
Syria and western Arabia in 1914–1917, in providing humanitarian protection and assistance to Armenians (p. 390). He ordered an effective relief effort, as a result of which the
vast majority of the relocatees in his zone of command survived. He also took protective
measures to keep the Armenians in the city centers. He employed artisans from among
the relocatees in army factories and used this opportunity to prevent as many Armenians
as possible from being sent to the desert. Cemal Paşa inflicted severe penalties on those
who mistreated the Armenians during the displacements. Similarly, robbers who
assaulted Armenian relocatees were heavily punished when their attacks were reported
to him. All in all, during the removal of Armenians, he wholeheartedly strove to
improve their conditions. Generally, Armenians spoke well of Cemal Paşa. Thanks to
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him, many of them, especially those from Adana, were taken to Damascus and Hama
regions and areas further south and were able to live reasonable lives.11
Hagop Sarkissian, who later changed his name to James Kay Sutherland in the United
States, provides rare and valuable insights into Cemal Paşa’s treatment of the Armenians
in Syria. Sarkissian, who had been relocated with his family from Kilis in southeastern
Anatolia to Aleppo in 1915, had served as provincial health care officer and railway
station administrator in that city during 1915–1918, and was thus an important eyewitness to the events at the time. He pays tribute and expresses personal token of appreciation to the memory of the commander of the Fourth Army. Having emigrated from
Aleppo to the United States in 1920 at the age of 23, he says the Ottoman general was
magnanimous toward the Armenians and refers to him as “a great man”, who was
“responsible for the saving of half-a-million Armenians in that part of Turkey subject
to his control; and consequently, for the large Armenian population flourishing today
in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine”. He also states that the thousands, who later migrated
from those regions to Europe and America, himself among them, were indebted to him.12
Rogan’s unsubstantiated claim that the Armenian events of 1915 constitute “a genocide” is wholly misleading (pp. 424–425, fn 17). The word genocide is, of course,
packed with controversy. More than a century on, the nature and scope of Armenian relocations remain the subject of impassioned discussions, political campaigns, and maneuvering. Very often, the word genocide is used out of context in world public opinion in a
way that ignores the many dimensions of the long Armenian relationship with the
Ottoman Empire. Many of the inquiries made in the West on the Armenian issue in particular, and on genocide analysis in general, require constructive and critical reassessment as there is dire need for unbiased and rational studies of these difficult subjects.
Scholars will have to view the matters through the lens of world history and renew
their investigations of the causes of the relocations. Only original and comprehensive
research, conducted by the tried and tested methods of modern scholarship—using
both Ottoman and Western sources—will tell the truth.
The only legal definition of genocide is that provided by the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 9 December 1948
(UNCG). The existing war crimes tribunals are based on this definition. Those accused
of the crime of genocide are charged according to the definition of the UNCG. Since genocide is now a technical term in international law, the definition established by the
UNCG has assumed prima facie authority, and it is with this definition that one should
assess the applicability of the concept of genocide to the Armenian events of 1915.
The initial phrase, or chapeau, of Article 2 of the UNCG addresses the fundamental
element of the crime of genocide—that is, the “ … intent to destroy, in whole or in
part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such”. Practically all legal scholars
accept the centrality of this clause. Genocide thus pertains to a precisely defined range of
prohibited conduct only when that conduct is intentionally undertaken.
Up to now, no direct and objective evidence of malicious intention is manifest in the
̇
case of the Ottoman Armenians. The Ottoman archives in Istanbul
are replete with government decrees and regulations proving the contrary.
The author’s extended bibliography indicates comprehensiveness, although this
reviewer was struck by a number of glaring omissions. Stanford Shaw’s two-volume
book on the Ottoman Empire’s participation in the First World War is a must for students
in the field.13
The book has some factual errors. For example, the CUP was not founded in the early
̇
1900s but in 1889 (p. 4); the Action Army did not march on Istanbul
under the command
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587
of Major Niyazi Bey but under Mahmut Şevket Paşa, the commander of the Third Army
in Salonica (p. 9); there was no Colonel Paul Bronsart von Schellendorf employed in the
Ottoman army during the First World War but General Friedrich Bronsart von Schellendorf and he was not an advisor but the Deputy Chief of the General Staff (p. 102); during
the battles at Sarıkamış in December 1914–January 1915 not 82,000 but 32,000 Ottoman
soldiers were killed (p. 114); The Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa (Special Organization) did not exist
during the Balkan Wars, it was founded later, on 17 November 1913 (p. 124); in Febru̇
ary 1915, the Ottomans began to remove Armenians from Dörtyol and Iskenderun
not to
the Adana region but to Aleppo and beyond (p. 166); the exact number of Armenian activists arrested on 24 April 1915 was not 240 but 235 (p. 168); the governor of Van in 1915,
Cevdet (Belbez), was not Paşa but Bey (p. 169); Feroz Ahmad’s From Empire to Republic
was not published in 1908 but in 2008 (p. 447).
Despite major shortcomings, Rogan’s research impresses in its breadth. However, his
analysis does not contribute anything new to First World War scholarship, and indeed his
claims on the Armenian relocation of 1915 are mistaken. In sum, The Fall of the Ottomans
is a piece of investigation, packed with details and important information, which must be
used with caution.
NOTES
1. Nancy Gallagher, ed., Approaches to the History of the Middle East: Interviews with Leading Middle East
Historians, Reading: Ithaca Press, 1994, p. 43.
2. Stanford Shaw, “Ottoman and Turkish Studies in the United States”, in the Ottoman State and Its Place
in World History, Kemal Karpat, ed., Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1974, p. 122.
3. Personal interviews with Associate Professor Mustafa Budak, Deputy Director of the BOA and Brigadier General Necdet Tuna, Director of the ATASE, 19 March 2015.
4. See, for example, Fahri Belen, Birinci Dünya Harbinde Türk Harbi 1914–1918 Yılı Hareketleri (Turkish
War in the First World War: Movements of the Years 1914–1918), 5 Vols., Ankara: Genelkurmay
Basımevi, 1965–1967; Cemal Akbay, Birinci Dünya Harbinde Türk Harbi (Turkish War in the First
World War), 2 Vols., Ankara: Genelkurmay Basımevi, 1991; Birinci Dünya Harbinde Türk Harbi
Kafkas Cephesi Üçüncü Ordu Harekatı (Turkish War in the First World War: Caucasian Front Operations of the Third Army), 2 Vols., Ankara: Genelkurmay Basımevi, 1993; Fevzi Çakmak, Birinci
Dünya Savaşında Doğu Cephesi (Eastern Front in the First World War), Ankara: Genelkurmay Basımevi, 2nd ed., 2005.
5. Kenneth Bourne and David Cameron Watt, “General Introduction”, in Kenneth Bourne and David
Cameron Watt, eds., British Documents on Foreign Affairs: Reports and Papers From the Foreign
Office Confidential Print, Part I: From the Mid-Nineteenth Century to the First World War, Series
B: The Near and Middle East, 1856-1914, Vol. 1: The Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, 1856–
1875, Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1984, p. xi.
6. See Şevket Süreyya Aydemir, Makedonya’dan Ortaasya’ya Enver Paşa (From Macedonia to Central
̇
Asia: Enver Paşa), 3 Vols., Istanbul:
Remzi Kitabevi, reprinted, 2010; Hasan Babacan, Mehmet
Talat Paşa 1874–1921, Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 2005; Nevzat Artuç, Cemal Paşa
Askeri ve Siyasi Hayatı (Cemal Paşa: His Military and Political Life), Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu
Basımevi, 2005.
7. See Hasan Kayalı, Arabs and Young Turks: Ottomanism, Arabism and Islamism in the Ottoman Empire,
1908–1918, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1997.
8. Further details can be found in Yücel Güçlü, Armenians and the Allies in Cilicia 1914–1923, Salt Lake
City, UT: University of Utah Press, 2010, pp. 53–67.
9. Yücel Güçlü, “The Last Ottoman Pitched Battle of the First World War and the Determination of the
Turkish-Syrian Boundary Line”, in Communications Presented at the International Conference on Atatürk
and Modern Turkey Ankara, 22–23 October 1998, Sina Akşin, ed., Ankara: Ankara Üniversitesi Basımevi, 1999, p. 627; Falih Rıfkı Atay, Atatürk’ün Hatıraları 1914–1919 (The Recollections of
Atatürk 1914–1919), Ankara: Türkiye Iş̇ Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 1965, p. 63; Otto Liman von
Sanders, Five Years in Turkey, Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute, 1927, pp. 318–319; Cyril Falls,
588
10.
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11.
12.
13.
Review Essay
ed., Official History of the Great War. Military Operations: Egypt and Palestine, Vol. 2: From June 1917 to
the End of the War, London: Macmillan, 1930, p. 612.
̇
̇
For a sound analysis of the Ottoman courts martial of 1919–1920, see Feridun Ata, Işgal
Istanbul’unda
̇
Tehcir Yargılamaları (Trials for Relocations in Occupied Istanbul),
Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 2005.
The sources here are numerous. See, for instance, ATASE, Birinci Dünya Harbi Koleksiyonu
(Collection of the First World War) (henceforth referred to as BDHK), Folder: 1768, File: 206, 25
July 1916; ATASE, BDHK, Folder: 533, File: 2084-1-3, 29 May 1917; Muhittin Birgen, Zeki
̇
Arıkan, ed., Ittihat
ve Terakki’de On Sene (Ten Years in the Committee of the Union and Progress),
̇
̇
Vol. 2: Ittihat
ve Terakki’nin Sonu (End of the Committee of Union and Progress), Istanbul:
Kitap
Yayınevi, 2006, p. 765; Sarkis Çerkezyan, Bu Dünya Hepimize Yeter (This World Suffices For All
̇
of Us), Istanbul:
Belge Yayınları, reprinted, 2009, p. 37; Enver Konukçu, Erzurum’da Kars Kapı Şehi̇ Mezar: Hafız Hakkı ve Cemal Paşalar (1915, 1922) (Two Graves in the Kars Kapı Military
tliğindeki Iki
Graveyard in Erzurum: Hafız Hakkı and Cemal Paşas [1915, 1922]), Erzurum: Atatürk Üniversitesi
Yayınları, 2010, pp. 428–431; Yervant Odian, trans. Ara Stepan Melkonian, Accursed Years: My Exile
and Return from Der Zor, 1914–1919, London: Gomidas Institute, 2009, p. 94; Hilmar Kaiser,
“Regional Resistance to Central Government Policies: Ahmed Djemal Pasha, the Governors of
Aleppo, and Armenian Deportees in the Spring and Summer of 1915”, Journal of Genocide Research,
Vol. 12, No. 3–4, 2010, pp. 173–218.
James Kay Sutherland, The Adventures of an Armenian Boy: An Autobiography and Historical Narrative
Encompassing the Last Thirty Years of the Ottoman Empire, Ann Arbor, MI: Ann Arbor Press, 1964,
p. 146.
Stanford Shaw, The Ottoman Empire in World War I, 2 Vols., Ankara: Turkish Historical Society,
2006–2008.
YÜCEL GÜÇLÜ © 2015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13602004.2015.1112119