The period extending from 1918 to 1922 receives a great deal of scholarly attention in Turkish historiography. Nonetheless, it is fair to suggest that most of these postwar historical studies lack enlightening perspectives as well as innovative approaches. Hasan Kayalı’s new book titled Imperial Resilience proves that there is still much to explore in this unique decade in light of contemporary historical discussions and critiques. Revisiting the well-known Paris Peace Conference, the Mudros Armistice, the Wilson principles, the National Pact (Misak-ı Milli), and the congresses convened by the Anatolian resistance movement, the book questions the “teleological” aspect of the mainstream nationalist historiography, which documents the Anatolian resistance from 1919 to 1922 as destined to create a nation-state based on Turkish identity. Kayalı argues that a nation-state based on Turkish nationalism or Turkish identity was not even on the table in the 1918–22 period.
What makes this book original is the narrative of this period through the agency and mutual relations of distinct actors such as the Istanbul government, Anatolian resistance movements later represented by the Ankara government, Britain and France as occupation forces and as the makers of the peace agreements, the Arab elites such as the Hashemite family, particularly Sharif Faysal, claiming the leadership of the Arab states under British mandate, and finally the resistance movements in Syria and Mesopotamia struggling for independence. Almost each chapter of the book constructs an integral picture of the debate on territorial claims bringing forward the activities of these different actors.
The first of the book’s five chapters traces back the origins of the use of Muslim identity by Ottoman rulers as a “redemption project.” It particularly focuses on the policies implemented by the last CUP (the Committee of Union and Progress) administration during the Great War, which basically aimed at the consolidation of the Ottoman state in the Arab provinces. Historical documents and evidence are brought to light by Kayalı in this regard, especially those that highlight the military activities undertaken by Cemal Pasha (one of the three leaders of the CUP) as the military commander and the governor of Greater Syria revitalizing Ottomanism in that region with an emphasis on a common Muslim identity.
Focusing on the last year of the Great War and the events following the British occupation of Syria in the last days of the war, the second chapter discusses the incidental aspect of the demarcation of the boundaries that stretches across Turkey and Syria. Kayalı accordingly points out how the Anatolian resistance considered the territories not occupied by the Allied forces at the time of the cease-fire as the legitimate boundaries of the Ottoman state. He then emphasizes the ways in which the National Pact is built on this territorial claim. However, these territorial claims that “did not correspond to clearly identifiable cultural, demographic, or topographical boundaries” were later “appropriated, elaborated, and even sacralized” by the projects of nation-building (p. 75). Meanwhile, Wilson principles provided the resistance movements with another legitimatization base for claiming the territories envisioned by the National Pact. As known, the Wilsonian notion of self-determination is based on ethnic/racial belongings rather than the accidentality of the cease-fire mapping. However, both arguments fell short for keeping the northern Iraq and northern Syrian territories inside the new state of Turkey. The chapter also draws attention to the existence of different political projects regarding the Arab provinces such as confederation and autonomy. As an alternative to the French domination, some Arab leaders like Faysal and Nuri al- Sa’id, a former Ottoman officer who had joined the Hashemite ranks, were considering the possibility of creating autonomous structures within the empire. Kayalı points the ways in which the Bavaria–Germany or Austria–Hungary models provided inspiration for the solution suggestions that came to fore at that time.
The third chapter focusing on the alleged cooperation agreements signed between the Anatolian and Syrian resistance movements posits that there is no proof for an engagement from the part of the leadership of the Anatolian resistance to widen the military struggle to comprise Syrian and other Arab territories. Apparently, the Anatolian movement gave priority to the war against the Greek armies in western Anatolia and “the militias in southeastern Anatolia as well as in northern Syria and Iraq were largely left to their own devices during the postwar half decade” (pp. 108–9).
In the fourth and fifth chapters the reader may find out how the Syrian and Mesopotamian territories’ place shifted in the priorities and strategy of the Ankara government throughout the early 1920s. At the first days of Ankara government in 1920, Mustafa Kemal openly stated that the priority of his government was the independence of the state within the borders determined by the National Pact, then he opened a door for a federative or confederative structure comprising the Arab provinces. However, the Ankara Agreement with France regarding the occupied territories at the southeast Anatolia ended these ambiguities: With this agreement dated 1921, the Ankara government gained diplomatic recognition and “a significant modification of French stakes in the Treaty of Sèvres in return for the GNA [Grand National Assembly] government’s recognition of the French mandatory role in Syria” (p. 143). Meanwhile, Syrian resistance groups fortified their efforts to unite their struggle with the getting victorious Anatolian movement by bringing propositions from confederation to “Turkish mandate.” The fifth chapter concentrates on the resistance movements in Northern Iraq and Ankara government’s efforts to retain Mosul, Kirkuk, and Sulaymaniya inside its presumed borders. Özdemir mission, named after the Ottoman general Ali Shafiq (known as Özdemir) heading the mission, “to mobilize local groups in this mainly Kurdish-populated region in their opposition to British occupation and Hashemite suzerainty” (p. 151) stands out as the Ankara government’s efforts to keep Mosul and Mesopotamia connected with the Anatolian resistance by creating and supporting militia forces, although not directly involving in this region. Once again, the struggle in western Anatolia becomes decisive. The battle between Ankara and Britain over Mesopotamia stopped with the signing of a cease-fire in October 1922. The same happened in Northern Syria. An operation by the Ankara government to this territory planned in June 1923, was canceled when the negotiations in Lausanne reached the signing stage in July. After the signing of the treaty, Ankara ended all activities on the Syrian side.
Overall, I would suggest that the book successfully highlights the local characteristics of the resistance movements in Anatolia and in the former Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire and reveals the extent which the Muslim identity operated as a mobilization framing resource for the resistance movements. This emphasis on the civic Muslim identity is very well stressed by mapping out the network of relationships among the political actors struggling on the remnants of the empire. The question that could be raised in this context is: Why did the leading cadres involved in the Anatolian resistance movement not consider the Arab provinces as an indispensable or inseparable element of the state, and thereby did not impose sovereignty over Greater Syria or Mesopotamia in the same spirit they did on Western Anatolian provinces? The book provides enough empirical evidence drawing the scholarly attention to the dispensable aspects of Arab territories such as the absence of these territories in the National Pact and the nonexistence of representatives of Arab provinces in the last Ottoman Parliamentary elections held at the end of 1919 and so forth. Therefore, I would argue that an emphasis on the Muslim solidarity did not necessarily mean imagining a common destiny with the Arabs.
Kayalı masterfully displays how the studies seeking to prove that national discourses preceded the formation of Turkey as a nation-state “misread” the texts of the resistance movement (p. 124). For instance, he revisits the National Pact and the Congresses of Erzurum and Sivas to show that the use of the words such as ırk (race) did not refer to an ethnic nationalism. In accordance with his thesis of the nonexistence of a nationalist state project before 1923, Kayalı abstains using the term “war of national liberation” throughout the book and refers to the national liberation movement in Anatolia solely as the “Anatolian resistance.”
Finally, the subtitle of the book as “incidental nations” is open to discussion. This reflects the assertion that the redemption of the empire was the sole project prevailing the 1918–22 period and that the foundation of Turkey as nation-state was an accidental consequence of the events following the Great War. However, the accidentality of the lines demarcating the southeast border of Turkey does not prove that a nation-state project did not exist at all in the aftermath of the Great War. Kayalı evaluates the results certified by the Lausanne Agreement as the product of Mustafa Kemal’s effort to consolidate his own power. According to him, Mustafa Kemal’s “stewardship of the anti-colonial struggle bolstered his quest for power, which shaped the outcomes of the Ottoman settlement in 1923” (p. 146). Even though I do not agree with this assessment, I can say that it proves the existence of a distinct project belonging to Mustafa Kemal aiming the creation of a new state structure. The book also contains clues about the existence of distinct projects based on national units. Otherwise, it is not possible to understand the insistence of the Arab leaders to keep their autonomy under a federative structure or the priority of the Western Anatolian territories over the southeastern ones.
Considering all these points, I would suggest that Imperial Resilience provides the audience with an alternative perspective on the history of 1918–22 period, which I suggest, is very important when considering the emergence of the new state of Turkey and the foundation of the republic in the form of a nation-state. In doing so, this book equips us with solid historical lenses to follow and read subsequent state relations between Turkey, Syria, and Iraq.
