1 Introduction: Turkey, a military society?
Anyone reading about the political situation of Turkey in the early 1990s, or indeed during the past quarter century, is likely to be struck by the role played by the armed forces. The generals ousted the civilian government of Prime Minister SĂŒleyman Demirel on 12 September 1980, curbed all political activity, provided the country with a new constitution and a new political framework before permitting a tightly controlled general election in November 1983. As a result, power was restored to a civilian prime minister, Turgut Ăzal, whose party had won the election, and Turkey seemed to be back on the path to democracy. However, presidential powers, as defined by the 1982 constitution and exercised by President Kenan Evren, the general who had led the 1980 coup, enabled the armed forces to continue to supervise political activity. Moreover, martial law was applied long after civilian rule was restored and was removed only gradually, facilitating military control.
The military takeover of 1980 led many observersâforeign and Turkishâto emphasise the role played by the army in Turkeyâs politics and history. It was noted that the army had intervened in March 1971, and earlier in May 1960. There seemed to be a neat pattern of intervention every ten years, with the soldiers reluctantly soiling their hands in order to clean up the mess made by corrupt and incompetent politicians. In 1960, the army ousted the Democrat Party government of Adnan Menderes as he ran the country with total disregard for the constitution, relying on his overwhelming majority in parliament to justify his actions. In March 1971, the military High Command forced the resignation of SĂŒleyman Demirel, and did so again a decade later, in September 1980. The first intervention was justified on the grounds of defending the constitution. On the other two occasions, the governments were described as weak and inefficient, the source of anarchy and instability which threatened the very foundations of the state of which the armed forces were the guardians.
Apart from the immediate circumstances which are used to explain the militaryâs role in current political affairs, this involvement is also rationalised in the context of Ottoman-Turkish history It is said that the Ottoman Empire was a great military establishment which conquered vast territories in Europe, Asia, and Africa, and even threatened Vienna on two occasions, in 1529 and 1683. The Janissary army became the scourge of Europe. But during the centuries of decline, this same army, now actively engaged in palace politics, became a greater threat to the ruling sultan than to his enemies. The Janissaries, in alliance with the men of religion, the ulema, became a formidable obstacle to reform. When the reforming sultans of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries began to modernise the structures of their ailing state, they gave their attention first to the army. As a result, military schools and academies based on the Western model were set up, and out of these institutions emerged a new generation of reformist officers dedicated to the salvation of their state and empire.
By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, these officers had also been politicised. They conspired with high civilian officials and imposed a constitution on a reluctant sultan in 1876. Later, when the sultan, AbdĂŒlhamid II (1876â1909), shelved the constitution and ruled as a despot, officers began to scheme for his overthrow and for the restoration of constitutional government. They set up a secret society, known as the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) in 1889, and officers like Enver Pasha, Jemal Pasha, and Mustafa Kemal AtatĂŒrk, who all played critical political roles in modern Turkish history, were its members. The CUP-led rebellion in the army took place in June-July 1908 and, as a result, AbdĂŒlhamid was forced to restore the constitution he had shelved 30 years earlier. This was the beginning of the Young Turk revolution which continued for the next ten years, ending with the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War.
Again, the Turkish army, even in defeat, seemed to be the only organised force capable of offering resistance to the invading and occupying forces of the Great Powers and their protĂ©gĂ©s. Following the landing in Izmir and the invasion of western Anatolia by the Greek army in May 1919, nationalist forces under the leadership of General Mustafa Kemal began to organise a resistance movement. It took three years of bitter struggle on a number of fronts before the nationalists were able to restore their authority over the whole of Anatolia. Victories on the battlefield were followed by diplomatic successes, culminating in the Treaty of Lausanne in July 1923 which granted international recognition to Turkeyâs new borders. On 29 October, the nationalist leadership, which was overwhelmingly military in its composition, established the republic and set in motion the process to create a new Turkey and a new Turk.
The emphasis on the armyâs role in Turkish history and politics, from Ottoman times to the present, suggests a continuity which seems plausible. It assumes that the army was an institution which never changed its world view, that it stood above society and acted independently of it. It also tends to obscure the changes, often sharp and dramatic, which Turkey has experienced and which provide a better and deeper understanding of modern Turkish history and politics. Of course, there is always the thread of continuity which runs through the history of virtually every nation and there is rarely a total break with the past. Yet it is vital not to lose sight of the turning points. This is particularly true in the case of modern Turkey where there has been a conscious effort to break with the past, especially on the part of the founders of the republic. AtatĂŒrk laid stress on the fact that the regime they were creating had nothing in common with the former Ottoman state and was a complete break with the corrupt past.
However, there is another thread of continuity which runs through the history of modern Turkey and which helps us to make better sense of the contemporary situation than does the factor of military involvement. This was the Turkish determination to find a place for their empire in the emerging world economy at the beginning of the nineteenth century, dominated by Britain and Europe in the industrial age. At first, the sultans hoped to meet the growing Western challenge by simply creating a modern army. But by the nineteenth century, the ruling classes realised that they could not withstand Western pressure by only military means. In order to do so, they knew that they had to create a modern political, social, and economic structure of which the modern army was but one part.
The Turks observed the forces released by the European revolutions and learned that pre-modern Ottoman political and social structures would not be able to survive the onslaught of modern societies. The empire had to move with the times and abandon its âoriental despotismâ which recognised neither the sanctity of private property nor the dignity and honour of the propertied classes. The sultan had to be persuaded to give up his absolute powers and recognise that his subjects enjoyed certain fundamental rights and freedoms. This was partially accomplished by the imperial charters of 1839 and 1856, and by the constitution of 1876.
These reforms were only partially successful largely because there was no significant indigenous social stratum outside the bureaucracy capable of taking advantage of them. There was as yet no Turkish bourgeoisie which felt restrained by the old order and endeavoured to create a world of its own. In this period, most of the sultanâs subjects who engaged in finance and commerce were non-Muslims who preferred to live under the protection of one of the Great Powers rather than under a strong Ottoman state. Moreover, as a result of the French Revolution, nationalism also made inroads into Ottoman lands, though not as yet among the Muslim peoples. Christian communities in the Balkans dreamed of liberation from alien rule, and the Greeks succeeded in establishing a national state in 1829. Other nationalities followed the Greek lead and struggled to satisfy their aspirations. Serbia, Bulgaria, and Albania acquired their nationhood in this manner. The Armenians and the Kurds failed only because after the First World War (unlike the Zionists) no great power took up their cause and provided the protection in the form of a mandate to set up a state. Finally the Turks themselves took up the struggle, fought a costly war and created a state of their own.
The armyâs role in the final years of the Ottoman Empire and the founding of the national state was critical. But it must be noted that this institution was in the process of constant change, at first reflecting the policies of the ruling elite and later the tensions of a society in decline.
The âNew Armyâ (Nizam-i Cedid), which replaced the army of the Janissaries in 1826, was the creation of Sultan Mahmud II (1807â 1839) and the high officials of the Sublime Porte who advised him. Their aim was to create a modern fighting force on European lines, capable of performing as well as the army of their vassal Muhammad Ali of Egypt had performed against the Greek revolutionaries. The sultan soon found that he had to rely on foreign advisers to train his new army. In 1836, he invited British officers to study the problems of the army and to recommend the necessary reforms. Thanks to Russian pressure, the British were replaced by a Prussian mission under the command of Helmuth von Moltke. After the Crimean War (1853â 1856), the Porte invited the French to reform the army and the British the navy. French was now taught in the military schools, bringing with it the ideas of liberalism and nationalism, so dangerous for the future of the old regime.
In 1879, following the Congress of Berlin and the rise of German power, the sultan requested Berlin to send a military mission. The purpose was to counter-balance the influence of the other Powers involved in the affairs of the empire. The new mission under Colonel Colmar von der Goltz arrived in 1882; thereafter, German influence in the empire remained constant until the Young Turk revolution of 1908 when it was eclipsed by British influence. But German influence was restored after the defeats of the Balkan War (1912â1913) when the Liman von Sanders mission arrived and remained dominant until Germanyâs defeat in 1918.
It should be noted that apart from the foreign influences on the army, its social character was also undergoing a marked change in the last decades of the nineteenth century. This was true for the civil bureaucracy as well. At the very moment when the Ottoman economy was severely hit by the world depression of the 1870s, the army and the bureaucracy were becoming stratified, making promotion to the top virtually impossible.
At the same time, many who might have sought employment in petty trade under better circumstances, hoped to find economic security in state employment as well as in the lower ranks of the religious institution. Mustafa Kemal might well have become a small merchant like his father, or a functionary in the religious hierarchy, as his mother desired. Instead, he decided on the army where he received a modern education and the promise of economic security and advancement commensurate to his talents.
However, AbdĂŒlhamid II politicised the army and prepared the ground for his own fall. He abandoned the principle of merit and promoted officers to the highest ranks based on their loyalty to his person. He thereby created a schism in the army between professionals trained in the modern military schools and imbued with the spirit of patriotism, the mektepli, and officers who secured high rank principally because of their devotion to the sultan, the alayli.
Junior officers and civil servants joined the anti-Hamidian movement under the umbrella of the secret Committee of Union and Progress. Their aim was to overthrow the Hamidian autocracy and restore the constitution shelved in 1878. That is what the revolution of July 1908 accomplished. But this was only intended as the prelude to a social revolution designed to place the lower middle class, to which most Young Turks belonged, in a position of power and influence within the new regime. They differed from the senior officers who, like the high bureaucrats, wanted only a constitutional monarchy and had no desire to see Turkish society undergo a social revolution.
The army was neither monolithic nor did it act in unison; at the turn of the twentieth century the two most important groups in the army were the radical reformers who supported the CUP and the moderate liberals. This division is seen very clearly during the first five years of the constitutional period (1908â1913) before the Unionist officers seized power in January 1913. The rank and file of the army was largely conservative, even reactionary, and there were two mutinies to restore AbdĂŒlhamidâs autocracy in October 1908 and April 1909. Both attempts were crushed, the second and more serious one by General Mahmud Sevket Pasha, an officer who was patriotic but did not support the CUP or the idea of radical social transformation.
In July 1912, there was a military rebellion reminiscent of the one four years earlier which had led to the restoration of the constitution. This time it was mounted by anti-Unionist officers whose purpose was to oust the pro-CUP cabinet and place the Liberals in power. They were able to achieve their aims entirely. Had it not been for the outbreak of the Balkan War in October 1912, they might have succeeded in destroying the Committee and purging its supporters in the army. Had they done so, the history of Turkey under the Liberals would have been very different.
The terrible defeats suffered by the Turkish armies in the Balkans and the governmentâs willingness to surrender and place the empireâs fate in the hands of the Great Powers, discredited the Liberals. Had they not been overthrown by a Unionist coup, they would have abandoned all notions of radical change and independence. Like the nineteenth-century reformers, the Liberals believed that Turkey needed Europeanâpreferably Britishâguidance in order to be prepared for the modern world, just as America was thought to be preparing the Philippines. They hoped that the kind of administration Britain had applied in Egypt would also be applied in Turkey bringing with it the benefits of the imperial system.
The Unionists, who seized power in January 1913, had very different ideas. They were willing to be a part of the Europe-dominated world system but they expected to be treated as partners, albeit junior partners, as âthe Japan of the Near Eastâ. Following the Japanese example, they sought a degree of autonomy and independence sufficient for the creation of a capitalist society in Turkey with the requisite social classes. Before they could undertake such social engineering, they realised that they had to establish total control over the state of which the army was a vital component.
The first task of the Unionist government was to introduce its ideology of âunion and progressâ throughout the army and remove all other ideas which conflicted with it. Within a few years, the character of the army had been changed dramatically. Not only were all officers obliged to wear the khaki kalpak, a fez-like cap made of fur and favoured by the Unionists, but those who were considered incapable of accepting the CUPâs leadership were retired in the January 1914 purge after Enver Pasha became minister of war. Two months later, the War Ministry issued a decree which broke completely with Ottoman military tradition and introduced an idea with great significance for the future republican state. Henceforth, officers were obliged to salute their regimental colours and standards first, even in the presence of the sultan. Thus the sultan was displaced as the principal symbol of loyalty.1
The Turkish army was no longer the same institution after 1913. Though it was politicised, at the same time it was removed from politics as an independent force and converted into an instrument of Unionist policy. This may seem contradictory in light of the fact that Enverâs influence is said to have brought Turkey into the war on the German side, suggesting that Enver and the army controlled the CUP and not the other way around. In fact, policy was made by the inner circle of the Committee in which civilians formed the majority and Enver Pasha was first among equals. It should be remembered that Enverâs charisma was the creation of the Committee which, after the revolution of 1908, exploited his dashing personality in order to develop a heroic image. Even his marriage with an Ottoman princess was arranged by the Committee as a way to influence and control the Palace.
The âunionisationâ of the army was a major event in the history of modern Turkey. The old regime was neutralised politically and the contradiction between the government and its army was removed. Both institutions had passed into the hands of the same class, the Turkish lower middle class, and therefore both were able to support the same programme of reform for the first time. As a result of the reforms implemented during the war, reforms which touched almost every aspect of society, by 1918 Unionists were able to boast that they had brought Turkey into the age of capitalism.
Turkeyâs defeat, however, created a new situation. The Unionist government collapsed and its top leadership fled abroad into exile. In these circumstances, the old regime, reduced to impotence during the war, was able to reassert itself in an attempt to fill the political vacuum. The British, who wanted to establish their influence in Anatolia, supported the sultanâs government in Istanbul, hoping that it would regain its legitimacy and facilitate their task.
Had the Greek army not invaded Anatolia in May 1919, the sultan might have succeeded in regaining his former powers. But the invasion and the threatened partition of the country led to the rise of spontaneous resistance everywhere. Former Unionists, now describing themselves as nationalists, began to assume the leadership of the resistance movements. Had the sultan tried to provide leadership he would have had no difficulty in taking control. But Sultan Vahdettin, who came to the throne in 1918, had neither the will nor the ability to play such a role. Moreover, the old regime was totally demoralised and incapable of leading the resistance to imperialism. The sultan seemed willing to have his fate decided by the Great Powers in Paris so long as they gave him a state to rule, no matter how truncated. That is why he accepted the Treaty of SĂšvres in August 1920, though it was mourned by the Turkish masses and rejected unconditionally by the nationalists.
The army was in a dilemma. After the collapse of the Unionist government most officers followed the sultan, expecting him to lead the struggle for Turkeyâs rights. They switched their loyalty to the nationalist cause led by Mustafa Kemal when they saw that Vahdettin was collaborating with the British and acquiescing to the partition of Anatolia. The armyâs loyalty to the throne had already been undermined by Unionist policies in favour of patriotism; in the circumstances of post-war Turkey, the army naturally opted for the patriotic-nationalist identity rather than the traditional dynastic one.
The Turkish army made a vital contribution to the national struggle but there was still no consensus as to the kind of regime that should be created after the victory. Some officers wanted to retain the constitutional monarchy along with the religious institution, the Caliphate. There was even talk of seeking an American mandate for Turkey. But given the wartime developments resulting in the emergence of a Turkish bourgeoisie, however small and immature, these proposals were anachronistic. There was now a sufficient social base for establishing a secular republic, for only such a regime could guarantee rapid progress towards modernity.
The Turkish Republic was proclaimed on 29 October 1923 and Mustafa Kemal became its first president. His position w...
