Young Turks, Unionists, Republicans

Vâlâ Nurettin says the following about the Second Constitutional Era: “If the Constitutional Revolution had been suppressed, the idea of homeland and nation would not have survived. The nation would have thought that the caliph’s wisdom was unquestionable. The National Struggle could not have been waged. Turkey would have become a dictatorship similar to those in the Middle East.”

The 1908 Young Turk Revolution taught the Republic of Turkey, which inherited a country of 13 million people from the Ottoman Empire—90 percent of whom were illiterate, and as many of whom lived in poverty in villages, worn out and war-weary—a great deal. In the famous definition of the master of masters Tarık Zafer Tunaya, the Second Constitutional Era became “a political laboratory for the Republic.” The Republican leadership learned national economic policy, populism, the mobilization of production, the abolition of capitulations, the establishment of national companies, the regulation of domestic and foreign trade, and the importance of agriculture and cooperatives from that very revolution. The 1908 Revolution was welcomed with enthusiasm in the Ottoman State, which had great difficulty even collecting taxes from its subjects. However, Western states, which had looked upon the Young Turks with sympathy until then, took a stance against them once the revolution’s echoes in their colonies became strong. At the beginning of the First World War, it was England and France that most strongly opposed the abolition of the capitulations. For this reason, one of the first things that came to their minds at the end of the war was the reintroduction of the capitulations. It should not be forgotten that the capitulations were among the topics of the most heated debates during the Lausanne negotiations.

THE REVOLUTION THAT BEGAN IN THE BALKANS

There are historical, cultural, economic, political, and geographical reasons why the Young Turk Revolution began in the Balkans first. The Balkans, especially Thessaloniki, which was the region closest and most open to the West not only geographically but also politically and culturally, was a true center of revolution. It stood out with its capital and working class, its contemporary cultural environment, its press and publishing activities, and its influential intellectuals. This is one of the important reasons why the nationalism movement in Thessaloniki was more citizen- and culture-based compared to the nationalism movements originating from Central Asia and the Caucasus. While the winds of nationalism coming from the East contained more race-based and Islamist tones due to the reaction against Russian, Orthodox, and Slavic nationalism, the nationalism in Thessaloniki was much more secular. Indeed, this understanding would also influence Republican nationalism and would also come under the influence of the great Turkist pioneers coming from the East. Moreover, the objective conditions of Anatolia also dictated a land- and culture-based, secular, and citizen-based understanding of nationalism.

In the consciousness of the Young Turks, which did not consist only of Turkish and Muslim intellectuals but also included Armenians, Greeks, and Arabs, there was a reaction to the Eastern Question that began with the 1774 Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca. There was the positivism of Auguste Comte and Emile Durkheim. There were the influences of Ahmet Rıza Bey, who had Turkist aspects; of Mizancı Murat, one of the important intellectuals of the period; and in the more liberal ones, of Prince Sabahattin, a liberal daring enough to defend a free-market economy in an empire where capitulations were applied. There were enthusiasms, defeats, and drifts created by great quests, disappointments, hope, and despair. Their shift from Ottomanism to Islamism and from there to Turkism, as well as their intertwined nationalism and revolutionary spirit, were products of objective conditions. It should not be forgotten that the process extending from the Tanzimat reformers to the Young Ottomans, from them to the Young Turks, and from the Young Turks to the Unionists is a process in which the empire was dissolving and collapsing.

For better or worse, the Committee of Union and Progress tried to create a new class after the 1908 Revolution. Indeed, this new class would become the locomotive of the National Struggle both politically and economically. It would lead the nationalist associations established in Anatolia and Rumelia and call the people to the struggle. A large portion of the officers who participated in the War of Independence in the first step were the self-sacrificing fedayeen of the Unionist tradition. They undertook very important tasks in the liberation and the establishment. For this reason, it is necessary to handle and evaluate 1908 and 1923 together within the relationships of “change and continuity, rupture and persistence.” There are many historians who describe 1923 as an extension and continuation of 1908.

In the process following the proclamation of the Republic, the weight of the Unionist cadres who participated in the National Struggle in the front lines began to decrease. They tended to take sides different from Atatürk. Many of them defended a constitutional monarchy, not a secular Republic based on national sovereignty. The Progressive Republican Party, founded in 1924 under the leadership of Kâzım Karabekir, Rauf Orbay, Ali Fuat Cebesoy, Refet Bele, and Adnan Adıvar, and the Free Republican Party, founded in 1930 under the leadership of Ali Fethi Okyar, were parties in which many former Unionists took part. Unionist cadres were also at the forefront of the assassination attempt against Atatürk in İzmir in 1926. Atatürk, who was himself a former Unionist, was, unlike the Unionists, a radical Republican and a Jacobin revolutionary. He was very realistic, rational, and a complete master of timing. He had learned the necessary lessons from the past. He knew society very well. He was aware of what we had done in the past, how we had done it, and why we could not do certain things. He had calculated the pros and cons of the structure he inherited from the Unionists and the experience of the Second Constitutional Era very well. He knew well what should not be done as much as what should be done.

OBJECTIVE CONDITIONS ARE DETERMINATIVE

The Committee of Union and Progress, which was founded as a society and later turned into a political party, was not a political structure in the classical, Western sense. There were deep traces of Balkan committee members in its establishment and organization. For this reason, its functioning, as well as its understanding of law and the ballot box, were unique. It resorted to different methods, including weapons and assassinations, both to come to power and to stay in power. For example, the pioneers in suppressing the rebellion of April 13, 1909, which went down in our history as the 31 March Incident, were also Unionist officers. They were all intertwined with politics. The reason why the elections held in 1912, which resulted in the overwhelming victory of the Committee of Union and Progress, are called “the cudgel elections” in our political history is that the elections took place under tremendous Unionist pressure. As the famous historian Feroz Ahmad also pointed out, although the Committee of Union and Progress was a very powerful political movement, it was not an equally powerful political party. For this reason, the 1912 elections were made a matter of life and death for the society, and all kinds of measures were taken to emerge victorious from the ballot box. Because the elections were held at a time when the society’s support among young officers was decreasing and the Freedom and Accord Party, where all opposition elements, especially liberals, came together, was gaining strength. The liberals had become strong enough to purge many prominent Unionists. The Unionists could not tolerate losing the election.

There are many historians who say that if it were not for the 1912-1913 Balkan War, the work of the Committee of Union and Progress would have been very difficult, and perhaps it would have faded into history. The fact that the Bulgarians took Edirne, the old capital, and approached as far as Çatalca turned attention to the war, and with domestic politics falling into the background, the Unionists breathed a sigh of relief. With the Raid on the Sublime Porte on January 23, 1913, as historian Sina Akşin puts it, “the Unionists’ 5-year-long control, guidance, and remote-control power ended.” In 1913, the Committee of Union and Progress became dominant in the administration. Because until that period, most of the ministers in the cabinet were not Unionists. The Grand Vizier was not a Unionist. For example, Mahmut Şevket Pasha was close to the Unionists, but he was not a Unionist. Until 1913 and the Grand Vizierate of Sait Halim Pasha, there was no Unionist Grand Vizier.

But despite all the efforts of the Unionists, objective conditions were working against the empire. Efforts were not enough to change the balances in the war. Although the recapture of Edirne provided tremendous prestige, it was clear that they were weaker than before. This reality led them to various quests. The Special Organization, whose first president was Süleyman Askeri Bey, was also a product of these quests. Although there are different views regarding the exact date of its establishment, it is known that it was founded by the Unionists in the spring of 1913 or 1914. There are also those who trace its establishment back to 1908. In the words of Tarık Zafer Tunaya, it “symbolizes the committee-member, activist, fedayeen, and dreamer aspects of the Unionists.” In addition to intelligence and propaganda work, one of the most fundamental duties of the Special Organization was to resist against Bulgarian gangs and to protect the Ottomans driven from the Balkans on the migration routes. Among the prominent figures of this paramilitary organization, many names can be counted, from Ohrili Eyüp Sabri to Bahattin Şakir, from Süleyman Askeri Bey to Kuşçubaşı Eşref, from İsmail Canbulat to Nuri Conker, and from Hüsamettin Ertürk to Yakup Cemil. The poet of our national anthem, Mehmet Akif Ersoy, and Said Nursi also worked for the organization.

HISTORY IS NOT A FILM STRIP

The reality revealed by domestic and foreign balances is that the empire was dissolving. This situation forced the Unionists to abandon the policy of the union of elements. There were no longer conditions to ensure that different nations and ethnic groups could live together under the Ottoman roof. While the Unionists gave more space to the element of Islamic unity on one hand, they also brought liberal, decentralist policies to the fore, especially in the Arab regions of the empire. The Committee of Union and Progress, which took the reins of the country’s administration completely after Mahmut Şevket Pasha was assassinated in 1913, initiated a radical cleansing movement in the army. It purged its opponents and elderly officers. School-trained officers replaced the rank-and-file, the young replaced the old, and Unionist officers replaced the opponents.

Enver Pasha, who formed the tripod of the Unionist leadership together with Talat and Cemal Pashas, was known for his closeness to the Germans. A few days after the First World War began, on August 3, 1914, a secret alliance treaty was signed with the Germans. But as Feroz Ahmad puts it, “if the war had not started at the beginning of August 1914, it would be very difficult to predict where the empire would have gone.” In fact, the Unionists were not very willing to form an alliance with the Germans. They had tried to make an agreement with England, France, and Russia beforehand but were unsuccessful. Because the greatest spoils of the war were Ottoman lands. None of the three great states were willing to form an alliance with the Ottoman State, which had been defeated by small states in the Balkan War. Even worse, even the Germans did not immediately agree to an alliance with the Ottomans. They accepted the alliance with the Ottomans only after the war started and the importance of Istanbul and the Straits became even more apparent.

The Unionists also tried very hard not to be combatants in the war. They believed that the war would end in a short time, within a year at most. But they did not have the luxury of staying out of the war. The Ottomans, on the other hand, lacked the financial strength to fight; the treasury was empty, and salaries could not be paid. Even daily expenses were met with money coming from Berlin. As an inevitable result of all this, the command of the Ottoman army was in the hands of Berlin. The words of the famous British statesman W. Churchill, nicknamed the “bulldog,” that “the Ottoman participation in the war extended the war by two years” is a summary of the Germans’ true intention in bringing the Sublime Porte into the war. One should also not forget the Victory of Kut-al-Amara, which was the greatest success of the Ottomans in the First World War after Gallipoli and where a heavy blow was dealt to the British army. Moreover, the epic resistance at Gallipoli made the work of the revolutionaries in Russia easier, and the Bolshevik government withdrew Russia from the war. Most of the Unionists thought that they were not a burden to the Germans throughout the war and that they were two equal allies with the Germans. However, by 1918, it had become clear that the war would end with the failure of the Germans. When Germany could not convince England and France to negotiate, it resigned itself to its fate. The Unionists, who believed that they would keep the empire by giving up the Balkans and holding onto Arab lands, saw that this was impossible in a short time.

If the Ottomans had not entered the war, it would be difficult to predict what the end of the Ottoman Empire would have been or how the war would have ended. Because history is not a movie. It is impossible to rewind the film, replay the scene, or watch the images again. When dealing with the developments after the Republic, one should not forget the experience created by 1908 and the accumulation it left behind. When thinking about the internal strife in political parties, the tyranny of the chairman, the dictatorship of the leader, and the methods of eliminating rivals, the most fundamental structure we will refer to is the legacy of the Committee of Union and Progress. That is why the following words of Celal Bayar, a former comrade-in-arms and later political rival whom İsmet Pasha made great efforts to save from execution, are important: “Let it not be forgotten that I, too, am a Unionist.”