Turkish Politics and the Military

William Hale

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781136101489
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Turkey's geographical position, between the Middle East and Europe and at the centre of the current upheavals in the USSR and the Balkans, has led to a reawakening of interest in its international standing. Meanwhile its domestic politics are of increasing interest and Turkey seems to have become a model for Liberal Democracy in Central Asia.

David Hale focuses on the role of the military in contemporary politics. He author argues that the military has behaved quite differently from its counterparts in other third world states: it has acted in some degree as a guardian of the state, committed to economic and social modernisation.

The book places contemporary politics in perspective by looking at the evolution of the armed forces in Turkey from the end of the eighteenth century. The author traces the role of the military through the establishment of the Republic, the military coups of 1960 and 1980, the gradual return to civilian government of the sixties and seventies, and the military disengagement from politics of 1983 onwards. Hale is interested in the army as an actor in the political drama rather than in the professional functions of soldiers, and his historical exposition reveals much about the modern scene.

Chapter 1

The Ottoman army

Its structure and decline

Assessing the impact of a country’s history on its modern politics is a necessary but risky exercise. What people remember of their national history, and how they interpret it, may stray far from historical fact. When historical continuity has been broken by radical political changes – such as colonisations, wars or revolutions – then the links with the past may be even more difficult to establish.

Turkey’s modern history stands out as a striking case in point. As a national state, Turkey has existed for only seventy years. Its predecessor, the Ottoman empire, had risen and declined over the previous six centuries and over a huge territory which embraced, at its zenith, the whole of south-eastern Europe and the Middle East (bar Iran) with indirect control of most of North Africa. Within these vast dominions lived a patchwork of disparate peoples, with different religions, traditions and culture. The Turks themselves were only a minority in their enormous empire. Political authority was determined by the power of the Ottoman armies to control these territories, and political legitimacy rested on the attachment of the ruling institution to the Islamic religion rather than on any sense of Turkish nationalism.

All this changed in the climactic years which followed the First World War. Shorn of its Arab and Balkan provinces, the new Turkish state emerged under Ataturk’s leadership as a national, secular republic, committed to making a clean break with the Ottoman past. The last Sultan was deposed in 1922 and a republic was formally proclaimed in the following year. The lines of historical continuity were deliberately disrupted. If the past was recalled and glorified, then it was the distant past of the ancient Anatolian civilisations, or of the Turkish states of Central Asia before the Turks had accepted Islam, not that of the Ottoman empire.

There was, however, one exception to this radical reorientation of national history. In the republican era, Turks might be taught that their later Sultans had been corrupt and oppressive or that their religious leaders had held them back in ignorance and superstition. But their soldiers had always been brave and had upheld the noble ideals of their nation. For the army, the legacy of history was more important than for any other national institution. In effect, it was the only part of the state structure which could look back with pride on an uninterrupted existence since the foundation of the Ottoman empire in the fourteenth century.

The Turkish army’s historical legacy had three main elements. First, from the period of Ottoman greatness came an almost complete identification of the army with the state. Second, from the reform movement of the nineteenth century, when the empire was approaching its death throes, came the conviction that the officer corps was the vanguard of a new enlightenment, based on the adoption of Western techniques and thought patterns. Finally, from the early years of Ataturk’s republic of the 1920s, the army inherited the new tradition that its duties should be confined to the barracks and that it could intervene openly in politics only if the security of the state would otherwise be left in jeopardy. These three elements were not in harmony, since the third contradicted the first, while the second could be interpreted in a variety of divergent ways. In the modern political context, the different traditions could pull in opposite directions. An explanation of each of them thus forms the theme of the first four chapters of this book.

THE OTTOMAN ARMY AND GOVERNMENT

Outside observers of the Ottoman empire have been struck by the identity of the Ottoman state and its army. In the words of the historian Albert Lybyer, ‘The Ottoman government had been an army before it was anything else.… The whole [ruling] institution kept itself in power, and defended and enlarged the empire, by being organised as an army’.¹ No distinction was drawn between the civilian and military arms of the state, since both functions were frequently combined in the duties of a single individual. The empire had been established by conquest, and its frontiers were determined by what its armies could control. During the great period of Ottoman ascendancy of the early sixteenth century, the power of the Sultan and his dependence on a disciplined force of professional soldiers who owed sole allegiance to him excited the awe of Europeans. Machiavelli, for instance, contrasted the absolute power of the Sultan with the diffusion of authority in states like France, where the King could only govern with the acquiesence of an hereditary aristocracy.² Without his soldiers, he decided, the Sultan would be destroyed, ‘and it is necessary for him to postpone every other consideration to keep them friendly’.³

Over such an immense stretch of space and time, the organisation of the army was obviously likely to vary to meet changing local conditions and the demands of the moment. Throughout, however, the army consisted essentially of three parts – a slave army, a territorial army, and auxiliaries.

Of the three, the slave army was the element which most immediately attracted the attention of Westerners, since it had no parallels in Western Europe. No ignominy was attached to the status of a slave of the Sultan – very much the reverse, since the Sultan’s slaves were the most powerful officers of the state. They were paid cash wages, so they were in effect the salaried servants of the government. Originally the slaves were nearly always of non-Muslim origin, and many were acquired by capture in war or piracy, or by purchase from slave-traders. About half of them, however, were recruited by means of a human levy of the Christian communities of the empire, primarily those of the Balkans, under a unique system known as devşirme.⁴

The devşirme was supposed to be based on the Islamic legal principle that the ruler was entitled to one-fifth of the captives taken in war. In time this was used, somewhat dubiously, to justify compulsory recruitment from the Christian villages even if their inhabitants were not engaged in war or rebellion against the government. Every four years (or more frequently, if need be) recruiting officers set out for south-eastern Europe, the western provinces of Anatolia and the Black Sea coast. Each was told the number of Christian boys, normally between the ages of 12 and 20, whom he was to select from a certain district. Once the quota had been filled, the boys were marched to Istanbul, where they were circumcised and formally embraced Islam. The most able among them, about one-tenth of the total, were then siphoned off for higher training, both physical and intellectual, which lasted about twelve years. This qualified them for appointment to the highest offices in the state. The remainder were subjected to a more strictly military training, after which they entered the corps of the ‘new troops’ – the yeniçeris or janissaries. These formed the infantry backbone of the Ottoman army, a permanent guard stationed throughout the empire in peacetime, and its most disciplined and formidable force in battle.

The rationale of this system is clear enough. Its recruits were usually taken from remote and impoverished homes and then inducted into an entirely new religion, language and way of life. Since they owed whatever power or property they might acquire entirely to the state, they would, in theory at any rate, be entirely loyal to it. Moreover, the training programme to which they were subjected was designed to endow them with the highest degree of expertise and commitment. It has even been compared to that proposed by Plato, although there is no evidence that the sultans were familiar with The Republic. Those recruits who had been selected for the most thorough training, as iç oǧlans (or ‘inside youths’) were educated in special schools as courtiers and administrators as well as soldiers; initially, they received appointments as court pages, and eventually as senior government advisors, civil servants, provincial governors and commanders. In some cases they might be moved sideways off the middle rungs of the promotional ladder, to become Sipahis of the Porte, the Sultan’s elite household cavalry. The majority of the recruits were classified as acemi oǧlans (‘novice youths’). They were first hired out for several years to Turkish farmers and landlords in Anatolia, for instruction in the Turkish language, the martial arts and Islamic tradition, before enrolment in the janissaries. The division between the two classes was not complete, however, since members of the first class of recruits could be appointed to commands in the janissary corps, while the second could eventually receive high civil appointments. What was important for the state was the fact that, for the two centuries following the capture of Istanbul in 1453, the sultans’ Grand Viziers, provincial governors and military commanders were drawn almost exclusively from the ranks of the vast slave family.

The second element in the Ottoman army was a territorial one, and some of its main features had been inherited from the Ottomans’ Byzantine predecessors. In most of south-eastern Europe and Anatolia, the arable land was counted as the property of the state. Some of it was turned over to pious foundations (evkaf) or managed directly as part of the royal estates.⁵ The majority, however, was let to benefice-holders, who were expected to perform local administrative as well as military duties in return. Benefices were divided into three broad categories. Those yielding a revenue of between 2,000 and 3,000 to 19,999 aspers a year were referred to as timars, those yielding from 20,000 to 99,999 aspers as ziamets, and large benefices yielding over 100,000 aspers as hasses; (the asper, or akçe, a small silver coin, was the main unit of currency in the empire until the mid-seventeenth century).

The territorial system provided the Ottoman army with the bulk of its trained cavalry, and helped to make it the most formidable force in South-Eastern Europe and the Middle East from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. The benefice-holders were known collectively as sipahis – a general term for cavalry. In time of war they were expected to be ready to join the army, together with a number of followers and specified equipment, in accordance with the size of their benefices. In peacetime they were supposed to practice their military arts, so as to be constantly ready for campaigning. Those with a benefice of the minimum size were required to present only themselves, with a horse, breastplate and tent; those whose benefice yielded twice the minimum were to bring a fully equipped and mounted man at arms (cebeli) with them, and one additional cebeli for each 3,000 aspers of revenue. In war, the sipahis were commanded by captains and, above them, by colonels, whom they elected themselves and who normally received a ziamet. Above this, their districts were grouped together as sancaks, each controlled by a sancak beyi, who was a kind of district governor as well as military commander. The top of the pyramid of command, below the central government itself, was the beylerbeylik, under a beylerbeyi Originally, in the early fifteenth century, there were only three beylerbeyliks, in Rumelia (that is, the European provinces) western and central Anatolia, but by 1609 there were thirty-two, thanks to the expansion of the empire and of the government machinery. The sancak beyis and beylerbeyis were normally granted a benefice whose value reflected their station and responsibilities; thus, a beylerbeyi was entitled to a benefice yielding at least a million aspers.

Besides their military duties, the timar holders were expected to assist their superior officers in the collection of land and other taxes in their benefice, and generally maintain law and order. Since only a proportion of the total revenue of a province was assigned as timars a surplus was collected, part of which was used by the beylerbeyi to defray his own expenses, and part forwarded to the central treasury. In this way the revenue-collecting, administrative and military functions were combined in a single hierarchy of officers. Once more, the identity of army and state was underlined.

Although this system had some obvious parallels with the feudalism of Western Europe, one is reluctant to use the term in the Ottoman context, as there were some fundamental differences between the two. In the first place, the sipahi was not the legal owner of his benefice, since ownership was vested in the state; he merely collected the revenue from it. Secondly, although the timar-holder’s son could normally expect to succeed him in the benefice, a sipahi who died without sons would be succeeded by a new appointee, chosen by the central government from the ranks of cebelis, janissaries or other soldiers who had performed good service.⁶ In effect, there was no sub-infeudation. Thirdly, the sancak beyis and beylerbeyis were members of the Sultan’s slave elite and were imposed on the provinces by the centre. Their benefices went with the appointment, rather than being vested in them personally, and were reassigned if the incumbent was reposted elsewhere. In this way the territorial system was locked into that of the slave family, at least in the upper echelons. This structure was supposed to prevent the emergence of a class of feudal barons who could challenge the power of the central government, and the balance of power was tilted far more heavily in favour of the ruler than in the feudal kingdoms of the West.

The janissaries and sipahis formed the most important part of the forces; they were, however, supported by a large number of more or less professional auxiliaries, as well as sailors. Regiments of gunners, armourers, sappers and some additional cavalry were recruited from the ranks of the acemi oǧlans; organisationally, they were treated as branches of the jannissary corps. Until the early fifteenth century, the Ottomans had no navy. Over the next hundred years, however, the fleet was built up to become a formidable force by the standards of the day. Originally, the sailors were drawn from among the seafaring peoples of the eastern Mediterranean, who were mostly Christian Greeks, Dalmatians and Albanians, and known collectively as levents (a corruption of levantino). Since they supported themselves by booty and piracy, they were apt to be highly unreliable and undisciplined. Towards the end of the sixteenth century the authorities began to replace them, but they never succeeded in raising a regular corps of professional sailors. Before the fleet sailed each spring, the admiralty would offer six months pay to any men from the coastal districts who enrolled, but there was no likelihood that these recruits would have any experience of seamanship, or commitment to the navy. The galleys were rowed by prisoners of war or convicted criminals, and the fighting entrusted to companies of janissaries or sipahis who were taken on board for the purpose. In short, the navy seems to have been the least professional and least effective wing of the Ottoman forces.

On land, the main army was also supposed to be supported by a number of auxiliary troops. From the early days of the empire, the sultans had recruited Türkmen and other nomads as cavalrymen. They were granted small parcels of land, from which they were exempted from taxes, and were expected to serve in war without pay. Some foot soldiers were also recruited on similar terms. Both these contingents lacked the training of other parts of the army, however, so that by the sixteenth century they had been reduced to behind the lines duties. The army also included unpaid akincis, or scouts, who rewarded themselves by pillage, and were joined in war by all sorts of criminals and ruffians. They laid waste enemy country and could be used to break the charge of the enemy in battle, but otherwise they were of doubtful military value. As time went on, their functions were taken over by Crimean Tartars, who were commanded by their own chieftains.

DISRUPTION AND DECLINE

The preceding outline of the structure of the Ottoman army describes what the Sultan’a military machine was supposed to be, and what, to some extent, it actually was when the empire was at the zenith of its power, during the reign of Suleyman the Magnificent (1520–66). It is also clear, however, that the traditional military and administrative order was subject to some fatal defects which had almost completely debilitated it by the end of the eighteenth century. The reasons for the decline of the Ottoman empire have been endlessly discussed and argued ove...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Note on Turkish spellings, names and military ranks
• List of abbreviations
• 1 The Ottoman army: its structure and decline
• 2 Reform and revolution, 1789–1908
• 3 The Young Turks and their enemies, 1908–1918
• 4 The Turkish Republic and its army, 1918–1945
• 5 The path to a coup, 1945–1960
• 6 The military as rulers, 1960–1961
• 7 Challenge, accommodation and crisis, 1961–1971
• 8 The 12 March regime, 1971–1973
• 9 Political collapse and the third military intervention, 1973–1980
• 10 The 12 September regime, 1980–1983
• 11 The military disengages, 1983–1993
• 12 Turkish politics and the military: a comparative analysis
• Appendix 1 Sultans and presidents since 1789
• Appendix 2 Governments of Turkey since 1946
• Appendix 3 Map of command areas of the Turkish army
• Appendix 4 Command structure of the Turkish armed forces
• Appendix 5 Turkish general election results, 1946–1991
• Bibliography
• Index