Following the signing of the Mudros armistice on 30 October 1918, Allied warships sailed triumphantly through the Dardanelles. Istanbul and most of the other larger cities were occupied without resistance. The glory of Gallipoli, Kut al-Amara and other victories were all forgotten, the shame of ultimate defeat prevailed. Half-starved population of the empire eagerly greeted the peace. The war was regarded as a dark chapter that many sought to forget as quick as possible. Similar to the attitude of the population majority of the Ottoman political and military leaders were ready embrace the defeat and harsh reality of losing all Arab provinces but they were expecting to retain independence and integrity of Anatolia and eastern Thrace. Against the high expectations of others, a small group of nationalists, from the very beginning, refused to accept the future designed for Turkey and decided to fight at all costs. Most works about the Turkish War of Independence glorify the efforts and victory of the nationalists and condemned the so-called collaborators. This paper is an effort to the postwar Ottoman Empire into context and compare the Ottoman reactions to defeat to other contemporary and historical examples. Understanding the decisions and actions for confrontation, appeasement, reconciliation and collaboration is very important. The trauma of the war and the shadow of Sévres continue to affect Turkey to this day in the lingering fear that foreign enemies and their collaborators inside Turkey may again try to divide and destroy the republic.

This paper analyzes the short-lived but eventful involvement of Ku?çuba?? E?ref in the Turkish War of Independence. In particular, it focuses on E?ref’s re-establishing connections with his fellow Special Organization (Te?kilat-? Mahsusa) colleagues after his return in early 1920 from the British prison camp on Malta where he had been transferred after his capture in Arabia by the forces of Sharif Husayn in 1917; his invitation from Mustafa Kemal to assume the position of regional commander for the strategically important Northwestern Anatolian districts of Kartal, Adapazar?, and Bolu in the “National Forces” (Kuva-yi Milliye) movement headquartered at Ankara; E?ref’s failed attempt to suppress a loyalist, anti-Ankara uprising led by the Circassian population of Adapazar?; his subsequent demotion and increasingly sporadic activities; his defection away from the Kuva-yi Milliye alongside his fellow Circassian paramilitary officer “Çerkes” Edhem, and, finally, his involvement with an anti-Ankara guerilla movement called the Anatolian Revolutionary Committee (Anadolu ?htilal Komitesi) that eventually faded into irrelevance, but not before E?ref was branded a “traitor to the nation” (vatan haini) in Turkish national historiography. Drawing on a combination of Ku?çuba?? E?ref’s private papers, archival sources (including those from the Ottoman archives, the Turkish Military archives (ATASE) and the British National Archives, as well as published primary and secondary source materials), this contribution assesses the extent to which a figure such as E?ref, who was well known for his loyalty to the Ottoman wartime leader ?smail Enver, could be fully assimilated into the Ankara movement. Distrust towards E?ref can be detected in the internal correspondence of the Kuva-yi Milliye during 1920 and was not assuaged by the appearance of E?ref’s brother Selim “Hac?” Sami on the Black Sea coast of Anatolia in as part of a mission seemingly aimed at reinserting Enver into the “national” picture the following year. The paper also explores the possibility that what might be described as an “ethnic policy” lay behind Ankara’s strategy to deal with “rebellions” against the Ankara movement. All in all, the paper aims to address a few of the unexpected dimensions of the tumultuous period of the Turkish War of Independence, a conflict that was far closer to a civil war than the usual historiography admits.

This paper aims to investigate the professional military education system during the Turkish war of Independence and its legacy on the postwar Turkish Armed Forces. First of all, the existing peacetime Ottoman professional military education system and then the system introduced during the First World War are briefly discussed. Secondly the foundation of a new officer training corps in Ankara is examined putting emphasis on continuity and change. Thirdly the combat effectiveness of the graduates, feedback and criticism coming from the units and the reaction of the training corps are provided. The main theme of this paper is although the experience of the PME during the Independence War was brief interlude within the well-established Ottoman tradition why it had far reaching results on the Turkish higher military educational institutions. While investigating these issues cultural and social factors behind them in terms of individual and social level are also covered.

This paper and the accompanying presentation aim to visualize the background and the execution of the Turkish offensive that started on 26 August 1922. Drawing on various primary and secondary sources, the presentation uses animated icons and charts on a physical map of Asia Minor, to depict the Greek and Turkish orders of battle, deployments, and troop movements. I will be using Tableau, Carto, and Q-GIS software programs in the realization of the project. This offensive, which is referred to as Büyük Taarruz (“The Great Offensive”) in Turkish historiography, was the decisive military action of the Greek-Turkish War of 1919-1922. In the summer of 1921, the Greek Army launched its own major offensive to destroy the Turkish armed resistance, which emerged under Mustafa Kemal’s overall political and military leadership. The Turks stopped the Greek onslaught after a series of bloody battles, and then the Greek army entrenched itself in Western Anatolia. For the next eleven months, the Ankara government tirelessly rebuilt and enlarged its armed forces for a decisive push. However, the Turks could not establish the superiority in number of soldiers (except for cavalrymen and officers) and equipment. By August 1922, the opposing sides possessed similar number of troops in total, deployed around a rectangle-shaped frontline through ?znik, Afyon and Aegean Sea. To avoid a costly and fruitless stalemate, Turkish command concentrated more than half of its forces in the south of Afyon, thanks to rapid night marches, secrecy, and the incompetence of the Greek command, which failed to respond to this massive redeployment. The Turkish goal was to defeat the smaller Greek force dug in in a smaller sector, and thus throw the remainder of the Greek Army off balance and ultimately block its potential routes of retreat towards ?zmir. The plan worked brilliantly. “The Great Offensive” has a huge presence in Turkish collective memory and national identity. Yet the Turkish public usually has a superficial understanding of its planning and execution, which is also ridden with popular nationalist tropes. The historical division of the Turkish armed forces has studied the offensive thoroughly, but its highly technical publications are not very suitable for the general reader. The fundamental goal of this project is to create an animated presentation in an online electronic format that the general public will find accessible as well as accurate.