The perceptions and intentions

As largely practiced in many contemporary Middle Eastern countries, Cemal combined his elimination of the opposition and consequent construction of a despotic rule with the “independence” of the country. In his viewpoint, the full independence of the Ottoman Empire was only possible with the removal of all Ottoman political organizations that held an alternative political vision to the Unionist ideas of the ruling party. Exiling the prominent members of the political opposition was an important part of the Pasha’s project and was preceded by the execution of some of them. Cemal accused the exiles and those executed of being “separatists,” “betrayers,” and “the servants of the foreign states,”Footnote ⁵ although many of them had no such political agenda. By putting members of the Arabist opposition to death and permanently exiling those who remained from Syrian lands, he and the Unionist government envisaged a fundamental transformation of specifically Syria’s political structure, as well as more generally the reconfiguration of the Ottoman Empire. The deportation of the “adversaries” was intended to transform them into “ordinary” Ottoman subjects and eliminate their agency since they would be unable to sustain their opposition in Anatolia. According to Cemal’s thinking, the Ottoman state was then destined to succeed in controlling the behavior of the Syrian Ottomans in a way they had failed to achieve prior to the start of his tenure. In summary, the purpose was both to transform Syrian political life and eliminate the agency of its prominent opposition figures by normalizing them in Anatolia. The Ottoman Empire would thereby be reorganized under the CUP’s authoritarian rule which would leave little room for the diversities of the empire and limit the power of the others.

It is difficult to pinpoint precisely when Cemal Pasha adopted these goals. Although he had long been discontented with the presence of the opposition in Ottoman political life, it seems that initially he extended a certain leniency to them to build good relations. As such, when Cemal first arrived in Syria he established relationships with the prominent Arabists. He sought the friendship of Arab elites and showed them hospitality. ^{Footnote 6} He appointed a prominent Arabist, Abd al-Rahman Shahbandar, as his physician. ^{Footnote 7} However, members of the Arabist parties believed that the Ottoman Empire would collapse with the start of battles at Gallipoli, and that Syria would likely be occupied by foreign powers. As a consequence, the Arabists maneuvered to become organized in order to play an effective role in the future of Syria and to negotiate an agreement with Great Britain. ^{Footnote 8} Rida al-Sulh and Abd al-Qarim al-Khalil held meetings in Tyre and Sidon, and decided, in the event of an Ottoman defeat, to rebel against the Ottoman Empire. ^{Footnote 9} This posed a risk for Cemal Pasha since these coastal regions were far from being under the control of the Ottoman government. In the event of a rebellion they could well receive assistance from the Entente navy. ^{Footnote 10} It was not long before their intentions were relayed to Cemal. According to Kurd Ali, even their meetings and the discussions in them were reported to Cemal by spies. ^{Footnote 11}

These plots provided Cemal Pasha with a golden opportunity to put together a radical plan aimed at the elimination of the opponent Syrian politicians by means of executions and exile. According to the documents in the Ottoman Archives, Cemal began to consider prosecuting and punishing the Arabists in early May 1915, when he learned of their conspiring to rebel in Syria. In a telegram to Talat, he explained that the Arabists had to be eliminated to keep Syria peaceful. He highlighted how their “treason” (hıyanet) was evident, implying that he had not trusted them even before they started their preparations for a rebellion. ^{Footnote 12} Consequently, and also given his more general bias against Arabism, he began to arrest prominent members of the Arabist parties in July 1915. At the end of the investigations the court martial decision was to hang eleven of the arrested individuals. Theses executions were held on August 21 in Beirut. ^{Footnote 13} The majority of the hanged persons were prominent figures in the country, such as mayors and tax collectors, as well as journalists. ^{Footnote 14} The most well-known person among them was Abd al-Qarim al-Khalil, ^{Footnote 15} the president of the Arabist society Muntada al-Adabi (the Literary Club), ^{Footnote 16} whose origins were in the Shi’ite community of Jabal ‘Amil in Lebanon. ^{Footnote 17}

Cemal’s harsh policies might have been attributed to the extraordinary circumstances of the war had he stopped there. The prosecutions of members of the Arabist parties following these executions, however, demonstrate that Cemal was not aiming solely to suppress a potential rebellion, but that he also wanted to use the excuse of a rebellion as an opportunity to destroy the opposition movements in Syria and build an authoritarian regime. After the executions of the first group of Arabists in August 1915, Cemal expanded the scope of the investigations into a process of eliminating the Arabist movement in Syria. It was not restricted to the members and sympathizers of the Arabist parties, but also included their relatives, which was likely to minimize the possibility of their becoming influential in Syrian political life. The prominent senator Abd al-Hamid al-Zahrawi, ex-mayors, muftis, deputies, etc. were among those arrested. ^{Footnote 18}

On this occasion the accusations were more ambiguous. In light of documents seized from the French consulate, which allegedly reveal the treason of the members of the Arab opposition, they were interrogated regardless of the extent of their active involvement in inciting people against the government following the proclamation of war. In other words, a mere affiliation with these parties was sufficient to be criminalized in some way or another. The “guilty” were accused of attempting to separate Arab lands from the Ottoman government, and thus cooperating with the greatest enemies of Islam. ^{Footnote 19} The establishment of an Arab caliphate and the independence of Syrian lands were mentioned as other supposed goals, which, according to Cemal, made the alleged perpetrators’ punishment an imperative.Footnote ²⁰ At the end of the trial, twenty-one leading figures of the Arabist party were sentenced to death on May 6, 1916. Fourteen of them were hanged in Beirut while the others were sent to the gallows in Damascus. ^{Footnote 21}

As such, the process of investigation of a possible rebellion was transformed into the project of establishing an authoritarian regime in Syria and an unreserved punishment of the nationalist opposition, many of whose members were not actually in pursuit of independence from the Ottoman Empire. The German consul in Damascus interpreted this punishment of the opposition, and the aim of Cemal’s presence in Syria, as the reconquest of Syria. In accordance with this aim, Cemal established his headquarters in Damascus, the political center of Syria, rather than Birüssebi, the military center, for the second expedition to the canal. ^{Footnote 22} The consul adds that the trial of the Arabs was used as an occasion to destroy all political opposition, whether or not they had “treasonous” aims. ^{Footnote 23} Cemal did not distinguish between “separatist” and “reformist” Arabists. ^{Footnote 24}

Exile and its justifications

The deportation process only further extended the scope of the undertaking to erase the Arabist opposition from Syria and elevated their punishment to a form of political engineering. After the violence wrought by the executions, exiling opposition members to Anatolia represented an attempt to normalize those who remained and to neutralize their political influence. Some were exiled by court martial in Aley, while many others were banished without trial, by means of an administrative order directly from Cemal Pasha, due to their alleged disloyalty to the state or the fact that they were the relatives of executed Arabists. In many cases the exile was not a punishment for a certain crime – political or non-political – that they had committed. ^{Footnote 25} Cemal explicitly stated in his exposé that they were not exiled (teb’id) as criminals but rather permanently “relocated” (nakl) in Anatolia as a “precaution” (ihtiyat), although the actual treatment of the exiles significantly contradicts this “principle” and implies significant ambiguity about its purpose. They were to be treated in Anatolia as citizens (vatandaş) of the Ottoman Empire, with the full rights of their citizenship. By their “relocation,” “a Syrian citizen, for instance, [had] been a citizen from Bursa” (Bir Suriyeli Vatandaş, sadece bi’l-farz, Bursalı bir vatandaş olmuştur).Footnote ²⁶ As will be detailed below, however, they were not always treated as “ordinary” Ottomans in their resettlement locations. Furthermore, Cemal’s justification for exile was by definition contradictory as forceful relocation of a citizen from her/his country by government was called exile.

Had they been permanently relocated in Anatolia as a precaution, to keep the Syrian lands peaceful, there must have been reasons to do this, and Cemal’s justification for his actions offers an explicit manifestation of the politics of normalization. The most important reason which made their perpetuity (beka) in the Syrian lands was the political influence they had. Their social power (te’sir) would prevent full implementation of the reforms that the government undertook under Cemal Pasha’s leadership. They would secretly (içten içten) create intrigue (entrika) to invalidate the Pasha’s efforts. As the Pasha decided to relocate them to Anatolia permanently, the whole family had to accompany them. Otherwise it would be exile and the rest of the family would suffer in Syria and would be treated as people whose men were exiled (nefy) and who were guilty and thus denied the rights of citizenship.Footnote ²⁷

Some of those families listed by Cemal and sentenced to exile from Syria demonstrate more clearly the purpose of this policy that underpinned it. From Damascus: all members of the family of the famous Izzet Pasha al-Abid, who was employed as a close adviser to Abdülhamid II in the CUP’s ancien régime; the family of Sham’i Pasha (Sham’izades), who wielded great influence in Damascus, and the families of Shukri al-Asely and Shafiq al-Muayyad, both of whom were former deputies in the Ottoman parliament and influential members of the Arabist opposition. Al-Muayyad also belonged to the celebrated al-Azm family. From Homs: the family of Dr. Izzet al-Jundi, who was also among the prominent Arabists; the most “harmful” branch of the Atasi family, according to Cemal, as well as some other families in Homs who were presumably the prominent figures of the opposition in the city. In Baalbek: the celebrated Mutran family, some of whose members had been involved in Ottoman politics by Abdülhamid II, but had clashed with the CUP and the entire Said Suleiman Pasha’s family, and the entire Haidar family, as well as entire Christian families, all of whom were discontented with the Unionists. In total, 154 households were to be deported. Cemal added that the number of families could change in the future. ^{Footnote 28} According to a contemporaneous American report, the number of deportees was around 5,000. ^{Footnote 29} They were both Syrian elites and members of the political opposition, both of whom had made it difficult for Cemal to establish an authoritarian regime. His principal purpose was to eliminate them as political actors rather than relocate them to Anatolia as citizens. Meanwhile, in the first trial in 1915 in Aley, the vast majority of the condemned Arabists had migrated to Egypt during and before the war. In an attempt to erase those remaining members of the political opposition, the court martial ordered them to return to Syria for the trial. If they refused to come, their assets were to be confiscated and all traces of them erased. ^{Footnote 30}

It would be erroneous to believe that the deportations – or “relocations” as conceptualized by Cemal Pasha – started only after the executions, although he made such a claim. The exile of the “bearers” of foreign influence – or “traitors” in Cemal’s view – started before the Arabists,lost their lives to the charge of treason. In April 1916, seventy Christian Lebanese families were sent in exile to Anatolia. They were resettled in Anatolia due to their Francophile inclinations, without a trial. Many more Lebanese citizens were exiled to the Anatolian provinces, deported as political offenders and bearers of foreign influence. The most well-known figures among them were Habib Pasha al-Saad, the ex-president of the Lebanese Administrative Consul, the ex-kaymakam of Metn in Lebanon, Amir Tawfiq Arslan, and his brother Amin Fuad Arslan – and members of the famous Arslan family – and Said al-Bustani, from another celebrated family and the brother of the Ottoman ex-minister of agriculture, Suleiman al-Bustani. None of them were tried. The German consul in Beirut reported that some of them had been supporters of French propaganda, but others were deported because of personal grudges held by local authorities: ^{Footnote 31} Their prominence in Lebanese society was presumably a factor in the deportations as the Pasha explicitly stated in his memoirs that his “chief aim” was “to annul … the Lebanon statute.” ^{Footnote 32}

As a key feature of the intended politics of normalization, the “traitors” would be sent to Anatolian towns for permanent settlement, and their properties and lands would be compensated with equivalents in their new locations. Cemal established a commission to determine the value of the properties belonging to the exiles. The families would be comfortably transported to their permanent settlement places in a way that was “worthy of the glory of the government” (hükümetin şanına yakışır bir şekilde). They would never be permitted to live in poverty and any officials disobeying these orders would be handed to the court martial. ^{Footnote 33} These orders were given to ensure the transformation of the Syrian political elite into “ordinary Ottomans.”

Travel

The travel arrangements for the deportees conformed to the overall exiling policy, with its illogicality, contradictions, and inconsistencies. As previously noted, many of the immigration decisions were not based on the “crimes” that the exiles had committed, nor a special law devised for the Arab deportees. ^{Footnote 34} Rather, they involved an administrative decision strictly implemented by Cemal, who planned their permanent resettlement in Anatolia as a key element of his authoritarian aims for Syria. The deportees’ transport conditions were quite “comfortable” and those affected were humanely treated given the war circumstances. At the request of Cemal Pasha,Footnote ³⁵ they were transported free of charge by railway and all costs were covered by the Railway Administration.Footnote ³⁶ This treatment was consistent with the intended politics of normalization in order not to completely alienate the exiles from the empire and transform them into “ordinary” Anatolians, detaching them from their political and social environment and, thereby, producing new and “ideal” citizens.

One of the very few accounts left by those who were exiled from Syria into Anatolia, Issa al-Issa’s memoirs, includes many details on how the Arab exiles were transferred to their final destinations in Anatolia and reinforces the disparity between intended and actual normalization. Al-Issa was an Arab Greek Orthodox journalist from Jaffa and the editor of the renowned Filastin newspaper, and was presumably exiled for his suspected Arabist bias, given that he became the secretary of King Faysal’s Diwan in Syria in the post-Ottoman era,Footnote ³⁷ and for his capacity to influence public opinion, at least in Palestine.Footnote ³⁸ A local official, most likely the kaymakam of Jaffa, informed him in November or December 1916 that without any prior investigation he was on a list of people to be deported to Anatolia. In line with Cemal Pasha’s intended normalization strategies, he was also told that he must bring proof of his property holdings in the Arab lands so that he would be given the equivalent property in Anatolia. ^{Footnote 39} He went to the local police, who told him to prepare to travel to Jerusalem, allowing him to return to Jaffa for a week to bid farewell to his family. Al-Issa had many books in French in his house in Jaffa which he buried in boxes for fear that discovery of these books would cause him more harm. This demonstrates the level of enmity toward “foreign influence” and the mentality of Cemal’s policies during the Great War.Footnote ⁴⁰

When al-Issa arrived in Jerusalem with the people to be deported to Anatolia, they were given the name of the town where they were to be exiled – Ankara, in al-Issa’s case. From Jerusalem they were sent to Damascus where they encountered more than thirty people from the prominent families of Jaffa – the mufti of the town, Sheikh Tawfiq al-Dajjani – who were also being deported. This was in violation of Cemal Pasha’s intended normalization policies, which legally forbade mixing with other people. But this restriction was not properly implemented anywhere, perhaps because those being exiled were the elites of Bilad al-Sham and they enjoyed good relations with the officials. They were allowed to go to nightclubs in Damascus accompanied by a police officer who had travelled with them from Jaffa, whom al-Issa referred to as the “police officer friend” (al-bulis sadiquna) due to his tolerant treatment of the exiles. Given the police escort it is difficult to think that they had such freedom due to the incapacity of the state to restrict them. As many deportees had done, and as the first instance of his resistance to the exile orders, together with his exiled friends he petitioned the governor and Cemal Pasha to remain in Aleppo once he reached the city, but their request was evidently not granted: they departed Aleppo in December 1916. A positive response to their petition would have invalidated the politics of normalization as the deportees would inevitably have eventually reestablished their political activity in Aleppo. Yet this incident alone undermines Cemal’s argument that they were relocated as Ottoman citizens from one region to another since an ordinary citizen should have had the right to choose his/her place of residence anywhere inside the imperial domains unless a court decision was made prohibiting his/her settling in a certain location. Before their departure, Issa, the police officer friend, together with many poets and authors celebrated Christmas (‘Iyd al-Milad) at the renowned Baron Hotel of Aleppo.Footnote ⁴¹

They were transferred to Osmaniye, climbing the Taurus Mountains in German trucks, arriving at the Continental Hotel in Tarsus where they remained for some time. There, in another manifestation of the anti-French feeling and hostile attitude toward “enemy” languages and cultures that dominated Ottoman public opinion during the war period, was observed by al-Issa.Footnote ⁴² In the hotel they sat on the ground floor and sang loudly in French. The hotel waiter advised them that singing in French was forbidden as it was the language of the enemy. Too drunk to heed his warning, they continued singing. Al-Issa told the waiter to leave them alone as they were poor people who had just been deported, and that they even spoke to Cemal Pasha in French. An officer then came and slapped the author for speaking in French, but any further violence was avoided at the intervention of the people around them.Footnote ⁴³

From Tarsus, al-Issa and the convoy of the deportees were sent on to Eskişehir, where they were dispersed to their final destinations. The author was informed that he was to be settled in Ankara alone, but he insisted that his friend Khalil should accompany him and he was granted his demand,Footnote ⁴⁴ yet another remarkable example of a violation of the deportation rules that forbade any alteration of exiles’ end destinations. This situation can, however, be partly explained by the indifference of Anatolian officials to the restrictions imposed by Cemal Pasha, and the difference between intended and actual practice.

Other exiles also praised the humane treatment they received, partly because they chanced upon good people due to their bureaucratic networks. Khalil Sakakini, a Christian pedagogue exiled from Jerusalem, notes in his diary that the deportees and their Albanian guards all became like brothers in two or three days: “If all Ottoman soldiers were like those guards, the Ottoman Empire would be more powerful, vigorous, and intrepid.”Footnote ⁴⁵ Another member of the Christian elite, Awda al-Qusus, exiled from Karak, was kindly received by the Turkish authorities at every stop of his journey to Adana because of his friendships within the Ottoman bureaucracy. In Dar’a, the kaymakam Mazhar Bey, who had previously served in Karak and knew al-Qusus very well, welcomed him warmly. In Damascus another former Karaki Turkish official arranged a beautiful house as accommodation for him and his friends. While detained in Damascus, the commander of the detention center, again a former officer served in Karak, came, offered assistance, and ordered the sergeant major to treat them well. Al-Qusus arrived in Adana in great comfort.Footnote ⁴⁶ It seems that such treatment resulted in Cemal Pasha being individually associated with the evil done to the deportees and their expulsion from their home countries, rather than a more general and total alienation from the Ottoman Empire.

Carrots and sticks

Some of the deportees’ powerful networks within the Ottoman bureaucracy enabled them to resist and ease their deportation conditions, thereby limiting their potential animosity toward the Ottoman world and thwarting Cemal Pasha’s intended politics of normalization as it kept alive the deportees’ hopes of returning to Syria when the war ended. In addition, consistent with his intended normalization of the Syrian opposition, Cemal issued an order to the authorities of the destination provinces that they treat the newcomers as residents of their cities. Furthermore, he advised the governors to deal with them in a favorable and benevolent manner (muavenet ve lutf ile muamele edilmesi) so as to eradicate any negative feelings.Footnote ⁴⁷ They were “dangerous” in Syria to Cemal’s authoritarian rule but could be “ideal apoliticial citizens” in Anatolia.

Due to the plan to make the exiled Arabs permanent residents of Anatolia, even after the exiles’ arrival at their final destination, the regulation was that they could not change their place of resettlement. There was, predictably, a glaring contradiction between the aim and the methods employed to realize it. The purpose was to make the exiles accept their new surroundings, but restricting their movement even within Anatolia was against the spirit of the intended normalization, as the “normal citizen” should have been permitted the freedom to travel. The actual process of normalization, which forms part of the politics of normalization, also contained many violations, perhaps due to the inconsistency of Cemal’s policies: those who enjoyed good relations with high-ranking officials in Istanbul usually circumnavigated this rule by virtue of their networks and were transferred to chosen locations outside Cemal Pasha’s sphere of influence. For example, in November 1916 the Ministry of the Interior permitted Gharar Ghazaz al-Din Effendi, a member of the Lebanese elite exiled to Eskişehir, to visit Istanbul temporarily in order to undergo urgent surgery.Footnote ⁴⁸ Another exemption was granted to the ex-commander of the Lebanese Gendarmerie, Said al-Bustani, the brother of Suleiman al-Bustani, the ex-minister of agriculture, allowing him to change his place of exile from Ankara to Istanbul.Footnote ⁴⁹ Other examples demonstrate that such reasons were used as pretexts by the exiles to change their places of permanent residence. For instance, at “the requests of the doctors,” Habib Pasha al-Sa’ad, the ex-president of the Lebanese Administrative Council, was moved to Adana to address “health problems.”Footnote ⁵⁰ The real story of his transfer to Adana was quite different to that detailed in the official documents. He asked Shakib Arslan to arrange for his final destination to be changed to Adana, which he considered the most suitable place in Anatolia for him to live, located as it was beyond Cemal’s domain, and yet the closest place to Syria. Through Ali Munif Bey, the governor of Lebanon, who was from a powerful family in Adana and with close links to Talat, Shakib made contact with the governor of Adana, who was able to change al-Sa’ad’s place of exile.Footnote ⁵¹ Changing their place of settlement to regions closer to Syria represented a means of resisting Cemal Pasha’s despotic rule.

It seems that such strategies of resistance were eventually noticed by Cemal Pasha – or others in the high-level Ottoman bureaucracy. Last-minute petitions were not taken into consideration even if there was proof of the need to be transferred to another place. As such, requests for relocation to cities like Smyrna, Istanbul, and Bursa from Rifat Bey al-Azm from Hama and Metri Bisternis (?) from Lebanon were rejected; these places had warmer climates that would allegedly be better for their health. Their requests were presumably rejected to quash any hope of returning to Syria. Instea, they were advised to seek treatment in the cities –Çorum and Sivas, respectively– where they were exiled.Footnote ⁵²

Despite the strength of their relations with the bureaucracy, the exiles’ requests to return to Syria were refused, irrespective of the applicant’s circumstances. Many petitions by the refugees, in which they attempted to prove their loyalty to the empire and their renouncing of all political activity against the state in order to return to their homes, were either refused or went unanswered.Footnote ⁵³ The situation remained unchanged when representatives of the neutral states mediated in favor of the exiles. For instance, the American ambassador requested the return of Antoan Thomas Jallat, the American consulate’s interpreter in Palestine, via a memorandum to the Ottoman minister of foreign affairs. Talat transmitted this request to the governor of Jerusalem, demanding his pardon. The governor was, however, forced to refuse his superior on the grounds that Jallat had been permanently resettled in Kırşehir with his family by order of Cemal Pasha.Footnote ⁵⁴ In spite of the blanket refusal of their requests, the exiles continued to petition the government either to return to Syria or to change their places of resettlement, seemingly evidence of their rejection of Cemal political normalization plans in Syria.

Some other examples demonstrate the inhumane character of the process and the official insistence on implementing the relocation strategy. Those eligible for military service were usually conscripted to the army after their arrival in Anatolia. Some of their families remained alone in an unfamiliar country and requested to return to Syria. All such demands were rejected by the government, as per Cemal’s orders.Footnote ⁵⁵ Even children, who became orphans in exile, were not spared. In July 1916, Talat sent a telegram to the provinces ordering that children who had been orphaned not be allowed to return to Syria.Footnote ⁵⁶ However, his attitude softened following the adoption of a reconciliatory policy with his Arabist opposition when the military situation worsened on the Palestine front. On November 3, 1917, when Cemal’s reign in Syria was approaching its end, Talat requested Cemal to allow four orphans from Damascus whose parents had died in exile in Bâlâ to return to Syria accompanied by a Damascene merchant travelling there for trade. They had remained unprotected in Bâlâ and were to be delivered to their relatives in Damascus. Cemal summarily refused the request the very same day, on the grounds that making such exceptions would encourage other applications which could derail the project. They were to be treated like natives, as they had been resettled in Anatolia.Footnote ⁵⁷ However, as I detail below, it was relatively simple for the exiles to abandon their new homes and join the rebellious groups in Hijaz revolting against the Ottoman government under Sharif Hussein’s leadership as the Ottoman police were unable to keep them under surveillance. Escaping into the enemy ranks was the exiles’ most radical reaction and their most influential resistance to the normalization.

The relocation process not only consisted of sticks, but also included carrots. The exiles retained many of the official positions they had held in Syria as per Cemal’s deportation orders. In accordance with his aim of encouraging the exiles to adapt to their new home towns and normalizing them in Anatolia by cutting their ties with Syria, the army commander guaranteed that their positions in the state offices would be transferred to their new locations.Footnote ⁵⁸ When the local governments acted slowly in these reappointments Cemal intervened and wrote to Talat, telling him that the official exiles must be appointed to equal positions to those that they had held in Syria in their new places.Footnote ⁵⁹ As such, teachers, subdistrict governors, and other officials were reappointed to similar posts in their new homes. For example, Faiz Shahub, the subdistrict of governor of Milh village in Hawran and a Druze elite deported by Cemal due to “political necessity” was appointed to Kıbrıscık in Bolu on August 25, 1916.Footnote ⁶⁰ Mahmud Efendi, who taught mathematics in the Hama Royal School, was transferred to Eskişehir and given a role there teaching mathematics.Footnote ⁶¹ Given the absence of comment in the document on the teacher’s language skills, we can assume that he was able to teach mathematics in Turkish. Another Ottoman document, dated June 18, 1917, confirms that many of the exiled Syrian officials were reappointed to positions equal to those they had held in Syria.Footnote ⁶² Again, we can assume that they spoke Turkish at a sufficient level to fulfill the requirements of their jobs in the Ottoman bureaucracy.

At odds with the purpose of transforming the exiles into Anatolians – but in a policy favoring them – the exiles were treated as if they were in Syrian lands in terms of those privileges they had enjoyed before their exile. In this regard, during wartime, exemption from military service became the most important issue. A notable example of this was the situation of those eligible for military service who had been exiled from Lebanon. Each of them had been exempted from military service by the Protocol of 1861, renewed and extended in 1912, whereby men officially registered in the Mutasarrifiyya were exempt from military service. Cemal retained this privilege.Footnote ⁶³ Anthoine Ghanim, a Lebanese man deported to Kırşehir, had been conscripted by mistake. Shortly afterwards the error was recognized and he was discharged from the army.Footnote ⁶⁴ This treatment contradicted Cemal Pasha’s deportation orders. On the one hand, they were to be treated as if they were permanent residents of Anatolia. On the other, they retained their privileges in Lebanon. This could be interpreted as part of the policy aimed at approaching them with favour and benevolence, as outlined in the beginning of this section. Others from the rest of Syria were remorselessly conscripted, including the non-exiled Syrians and Anatolians, many of whom had left their families behind in the Anatolian town or city where they had been newly deported.Footnote ⁶⁵ As I detail below, conscription was arbitrarily implemented. Some, like Issa al-Issa, avoided recruitment in spite of their eligibility, due to their good relations with local officials.

Surveillance and freedom

If carried to its logical conclusion, the normalization of the Arab political exiles would have meant unbounded freedom of action once they arrived at their permanent residence. As explained earlier, if “a Syrian citizen [had] been a citizen from Bursa,” this would have guaranteed their immunity from government surveillance. The government authorities, however, in contradiction of this, were keen to continue their activities in their places of exile, at least initially. Due to insufficient man power such requests could not be fulfilled and what transpired in practice was a relative “liberty” within the boundaries of their ultimate destination, although this did not include freedom of movement to other localities in Anatolia. Additionally, those who dared to leave the Ottoman Empire were able to do so.

The central government occasionally demanded that the provincial officials monitor the Arab exiles to ensure that they were not engaged in political activity. In his telegram to Samih Rifat Bey, the governor of Konia, to Salim al-Najjar, a prominent member of al-Ahd society, Talat Bey, the minister of interior, legitimized al-Najjar’s exile, citing the following reasons, and instructed the governor to have him secretly followed by the police: first, he was a cohort [hempa] of Abd al-Wahhab al-Inglizi, Shukri al-Asely and Muhammad Kurd AliFootnote ⁶⁶ and was an “extremely seditious scoundrel” (son derece müfsid bir herif); he had attended secret meetings in Damascus to prepare a rebellion against the government; and the Arabist leaders had congregated in his house and made decisions about their future plans. His son, Jalal al-Najjar, had provoked the Arab soldiers to rebellion and desertion during his stay in Aleppo. Such official concerns about the exiles made implementation of the politics of normalization impossible as envisaged by Cemal Pasha, widened the gap between intended and actual results and maintained their “extraordinary” status in their places of resettlement.Footnote ⁶⁷

Such orders were rare until it became obvious that the Arab Revolt could not be suppressed, which raised the alarm for the Ottoman government regarding the loyalty of the Arabs and caused the emergence of many contradictions in the imperial policy on Arab exiles. Concerned by the loyalty of the Arabs given the progress of the Sharifian troops, and the negative impact this would have on Cemal Pasha’s policy of normalization, he and the central authorities increased their pressure on the provincial authorities of Anatolia to keep an eye on those Arab political exiles relocated to their areas. Despite being deported to Anatolia, in the minds of the Ottoman officials the exiles remained influential political figures of the Syrian lands whose political skills could jeopardize Ottoman sovereignty in Syria.

From late 1916 onwards, when some of the exiles escaped their places of resettlement and joined the Sharifian army,Footnote ⁶⁸ Cemal repeatedly warned the central government to instruct the local governors to keep the exiles under covert surveillance.Footnote ⁶⁹ It seems that the local authorities did not feel the need to follow the newcomers as they had been instructed to treat them like native Anatolians. The desertion of Shafiq al-Muayyad’s nephews – Amr and Faiz – from Bursa, who were re-exiled by Cemal due to their father’s alleged treason, demonstrates the ease of exiles running away from their new homes. When the minister of the interior was informed about the al-Muayyads’ escape, he ordered the governor of Bursa to conduct an investigation of the police to find those responsible for failing to keep them under covert surveillance and thereby facilitating their desertion.Footnote ⁷⁰

The governor of Bursa responded angrily to the minister, highlighting the contradictions within the central government’s instructions, and the disparity between the intended and actual politics of normalization. The governor argued that there was no single official who could be held responsible for the escape since nobody had instructed him to monitor any of the exiles. On the contrary – and in line with Cemal’s intended politics of normalization – the command of the Fourth Army had instructed them to treat the exiles as residents of the city. He therefore did not restrict their travel and they were free to move about within the boundaries of the province. Furthermore, the police numbers in the city were insufficient for such a role. If the government had explicitly required the Syrians to be closely monitored, these suspects should have been gathered in one district to enable the police to carry out their function properly, or the police force should have been dramatically increased.Footnote ⁷¹

The governor had pointed out a very real problem: the ability of the provinces to keep watch over the exiles, a problem that endured until their return to Syria. By July 1917, Cemal was frustrated with the exiles continuing to join the Hijazi rebels and the “mercy” (merhamet) shown to them by local governments. Cemal Pasha issued the ultimatum that were the central government not able to stop the desertions, “as a radical measure” (radikal bir tedbir olarak) he would necessarily bring back all the exiles showing sympathy for the separatist movements in Syria and “wipe out their bodies” (vücutlarını izale etmek lazım geleceği) by court martial.Footnote ⁷² Given the experience of the exiles in Anatolia and a lack of evidence in the Ottoman archives, however, it seems that such serious threats did not lead to any restrictions in the daily lives of the exiles. Thus, the politics of normalization ironically maintained its intended goals of a normal life in Anatolia for those exiles who did not flee, in spite of Cemal’s – and other central government figures’ – unwillingness to adhere to that policy.

Living and adaptation

The experience of the exiles in Anatolia sheds light on how they were received in their “permanent” residence and how living with the Turks contributed to their normalization, apoliticization, and Ottomanization. Their relocation to Anatolia unintentionally contributed to an imperial cosmopolitanism as the Turks grew increasingly familiar with the Arabs and their culture and vice versa, although it could hardly be considered a positive situation for the exiles or legitimize the arbitrary state decisions to remove them from their homelands which deeply impacted their lives. The unpublished memoirs of al-Issa contain extremely valuable information on how at least some lived in Anatolia throughout their time there, and how harmonious their relations with the Turks were. Al-Issa’s story, together with others discussed here, may be considered representative of the exile experience of the Arabs for he was a political exile with nationalist tendencies and was relocated to central Anatolia, the region to which the majority of the political deportees were removed. In addition to his friendships with top-level Ottoman figures, the local networks he gradually established improved his exile conditions. It remains unlikely, however, that his quality of life approached what he had enjoyed in Palestine.

When al-Issa arrived with his friend Khalil by train in Ankara on a cold and snowy night they could not find an appropriate place to sleep so they stayed in a room at a coffee house used for storing coal. They woke up with their faces and bodies black, after which a police officer came and brought them breakfast; he then accompanied them to a police station. Al-Issa was advised to choose Beypazarı rather than the central city as it was so beautiful and had so many fruits. Although others, like Mishel al-Khoury, requested that he stay in Ankara with them, the author asked to be sent to Beypazarı, and settled there as his final destination.Footnote ⁷³ Given his reference to the fruit of Beypazarı, they presumably played a role in his selection as his home town, Jaffa, was famous for its fruit, and he evidently hoped to stay in a similar town.

Initially, life was difficult in Beypazarı for al-Issa. He took up residence in a han (hostelry) for travellers and visited the local government the following day to request that a daily stipend be allocated to him. However, an officer arbitrarily decided that he did not need a stipend despite his documents ordering local officials to allocate exiles a daily stipend. He was also not provided with permanent housing as no Armenians had yet been deported from the town. Houses left empty by the Armenian deportees would be allocated to the Arabs if there were Armenians in Beypazarı. Thus, al-Issa was forced to stay in the han and eat 50 dirham of bread mixed with sand and stones (c.160 grams) every morning.Footnote ⁷⁴ His social status had dramatically lowered as soon as he arrived in Beypazarı and subsisting had become his primary goal. This actual situation of al-Issa seriously contradicts the policy results that Cemal initially claimed.

These details prove that self-regulation of their life, at least as long as they stayed in the town, and adaptation to the social life in Beypazarı became a major concern for al-Issa and his friend Khalil which we can argue another aspect of the politics of normalization as practiced by the exiles. A Jewish moneylender, Hayim, who had been deported from Jerusalem and whom he had encountered in the town market, told al-Issa that there was an Arab family with two old women and children who had also been deported and were willing to take care of him by cooking and washing his clothes; in return, he would stay with them presumably to protect them in Beypazarı, a place utterly alien to them. Hayim guided al-Issa and Khalil to the house of the Arab family and they resided there, becoming just like one family, all happy with the new arrangement. But when the townspeople learned that unmarried men and women were living together under the same roof they violently entered the house, forced the author and his friend Khalil out, and delivered them to the kaymakam. The latter laughed when he heard the account of the incident and told al-Issa that the people of the town would not allow strangers to live in houses where foreign women lived. He advised them to stay in the han where the Arab family could bring them food and wash their clothes without living with them.Footnote ⁷⁵

The conditions of al-Issa and his friend improved over the subsequent days as they developed new networks and friendships in the town. Thanks to the coffee beans that he had brought with him from Jerusalem to consume in exile, they further ingratiated themselves with the townsfolk and gradually integrated into daily life. His conditions at the han did not allow him to make coffee and he thus started to frequent a nearby coffee house. Initially he asked the waiter to bring him coffee, but his request could not be granted as the town had long been deprived of coffee beans due to the ongoing war. The author offered to bring the waiter coffee beans on condition that only he and the waiter could drink it. The waiter was also the kahveci (coffee-cooker) for the kaymakam and told him that Arap Isa Efendi – as al-Issa was known in Beypazarı – had some coffee beans. The kaymakam and other officials asked al-Issa for some coffee beans and he grew to be so beloved by the Turkish officers that they started spending evenings with him. Al-Issa writes that the Turkish officers loved him even more because he had memorized some Qur’anic verses and some hadith. According to his memoirs, he also won the love of the townspeople as he had a bag containing medicine like “aspirin, English salt, cotton bandages etc.,” and was treated like a doctor in the town. However, even while he was so popular with the people, some children always chased him when he left the han and threw stones at him, calling him “kafir! kafir!” (unbeliever).Footnote ⁷⁶ This was not the only perception of the Arab Christians in Anatolia and Ilyas Bey Mutran’s experience was quite different. As recounted by Kurd Ali, the Turks did not want him to leave “so that they could offer more hospitality.” They kissed his hand, eye, and knee and asked him to bless them. The treatment did not change when he reminded them that he was a Christian; they replied, “aren’t you an Arab from the land of Muhammad?” Both they and Ilyas wept.Footnote ⁷⁷ These examples also make it evident that both Mutran and al-Issa spoke Turkish and could communicate with the Turks in their language. It would seem that they learned the language independently as neither had been to the Ottoman schools in Syria that allegedly taught in Turkish.

Another critical item that enabled al-Issa to improve his relations with the officials and further adapt himself to daily life in the town was arak (or rakı in Turkish), a special alcoholic drink consumed in Anatolia and the Arab lands. A deported person from eastern Jordan came to visit al-Issa and suggested that they drink arak. The latter responded that they could not have it or other alcoholic drinks as the town was so religious; there were six mosques and everyone left their stores at noon for prayers, leaving the streets deserted but for dogs. The visitor brought his arak from an abandoned Armenian town, now settled by the deported Lebanese.Footnote ⁷⁸ They occasionally repeated this “ceremony” by drinking the alcohol while playing musical instruments in the han. It seems that they also produced it for their own consumption. One day the mayor of the town, who had presumably learned previously about the arak, visited them and said: “güzel koku var! rakı var!” (there is a good smell! There is rakı!), and asked to have some of the drink; they duly obliged, giving him a large measure of arak. Other top-level Ottoman officials of the town, such as the military commander and the director for the registration (katib al-tahrir), then started visiting them regularly to ask for arak and join in the drinking parties, just as they did when they were asking the author for coffee beans. According to al-Issa, the kaymakam even brought a box and filled it with arak and started selling it secretly. Al-Issa argues that he and his friend saved themselves from military service by means of the arak that they generously served to the officials, thereby proving how personal relations influenced the official decisions explained in the previous sections. The author later realized that many people in the town drank arak in secret, buying it in from Ankara, all the while pretending to be abstinent. Al-Issa notes that the same happened in Nablus.Footnote ⁷⁹ In light of these examples, it can be argued that it was the social agency of the Anatolian towns, which facilitated the normalization of the exiles’ lives in their final places of residence, rather than directives and instructions of the official decision-makers who urged the local authorities to treat the exiled Arabs as if they were the residents of their towns.

After a while, al-Issa and his friend began to earn money through their networks to finance their lives, which increased their normalization as Ottomans and socialization as “the townspeople” of Beypazarı. The author’s friend Khalil became acquainted with a German engineer who was tasked with repairing the road between Beypazarı and Ayaş and he started to accompany the engineer on journeys to buy salt and candles from Ayaş and sell it in Beypazarı. Eventually, al-Issa also joined Khalil and they opened a shop (dukkan) in the town, which they continued to run until they left Beypazarı. He mentions that he had a photograph of the store with him weighing salt. Reinforcing the earlier evaluation of the “freedom” of the exiles, it seems that restrictions on their movement from one town to another were not properly implemented in Beypazarı, and they could travel within the boundaries of Ankara.Footnote ⁸⁰

In spite of these developments, al-Issa’s conditions in Beypazarı were not as comfortable as he would have liked. He was neither given a salary nor provided with accommodation unlike most of the exiles from the Syrian lands.Footnote ⁸¹ Similar to other exiles discussed above, he attempted to benefit from his political networks to improve his quality of life. He wanted to be transferred to another location in Anatolia and wrote to his friend Ragıb Bey, a parliamentarian in Istanbul; the deputy assured him that he would ask the Ankara deputy to take care of al-Issa. This effort bore fruit, and shortly afterwards al-Issa’s door was knocked at by a tall, dark-skinned men who asked for “Arap İsa Efendi” and added that his bey (the deputy of Ankara) wanted to talk with him in his house. There, the deputy introduced al-Issa to the elites of Beypazarı, and explained that the author was one of the most important men in the Ottoman Empire and the government had sent him here, and reminded them to treat him well.Footnote ⁸²

The following day the deputy visited the author; and was surprised and angered by how humble the author’s room was – with merely a blanket and bed. He listened to al-Issa’s complaints that he received neither salary nor housing, unlike other deported persons. Within an hour of his departure the deputy sent carpets, blankets, lights, a mangal grill, and other things to the room of the han, and arranged for a daily salary of 25 kuruş. Al-Issa then visited the deputy to thank him. The latter complained to him that his children, and the children of his relatives, had once gone to a school in Ankara that had now closed. The children, he feared, were likely to forget what they had learned there. It was agreed that al-Issa would teach them French, English, and Arabic. The next day four children came to him, and the author began teaching them. It was customary in Anatolia for students to bring gifts to their teachers; thus, when the students arrived, they presented the author with butter and baskets of apples and pears.Footnote ⁸³

It is apparent in al-Issa’s narrative that he adapted to “ordinary” life in Beypazarı and established commercial and other kinds of relationships with the Turks. His relations with the high-ranking officials became as good – or perhaps more so – as those he had in Jaffa. However, in terms of living standards and social status he had to be satisfied with an inferior normalization although, as evidenced by other examples analyzed in this article, this did not apply to all the Arab exiles. Contrary to what Cemal claimed, al-Issa’s material standards were not as good as they had been in Palestine. We once again see the disparity between intended and actual consequences of the politics of normalization.

As I analyze below, when the central government decided to allow the movement of the deportees to other Anatolian cities, al-Issa and many other Arabs migrated to Adana, the closest area to the Fourth Army region and beyond Cemal Pasha’s control. The Arab family who had helped the author by cooking and washing his clothes asked to accompany him, on the basis that they were Maronite, and consequently their daughters would never marry if they were to stay in Beypazarı; they had been asked by the people of the town to convert to Islam but were unwilling. Al-Issa agreed to their request and they departed together. On their arrival in Ankara, one official asked al-Issa why he had not joined the army. Al-Issa explained that he had been recruited in Palestine but due to his deportation he had been released from military service; the official allowed him to continue his trip to Adana, but observed that he would have been recruited to the army if the officials had been well versed in Ottoman law. As noted previously, his local bureaucratic networks helped him to evade conscription. Soon after, the exiles were allowed to return to their country of origin.Footnote ⁸⁴ The thread and the end of al-Issa’s story indicate that he never entertained the thought of remaining in Beypazarı permanently, considering it a temporary situation which would come to an end when the war did. Their sustained mental resistance to Cemal Pasha’s plans was rewarded once the suitable conditions allowed, and all the Pasha’s efforts were wasted – another manifestation of the failure of the Pasha’s policies.

Other accounts describe comparable experiences for the Arab exiles in Anatolia. Similar to the case of al-Issa, having good networks in governmental circles immeasurably improved life in Anatolia. For instance, with the assistance of friends such as Mustafa Abdulhalık (Renda), from the imperial Mülkiye Mektebi, Abd al-Qadir al-Azm received a posting to Şarköy on the Marmara Sea, which he served until the end of the war. Previously, Talat Pasha, the minister of the interior, offered him an administrative post around Bursa.Footnote ⁸⁵ In line with Cemal’s intentions, such treatment served both to maintain emotional ties with the empire and to eliminate their potency as political opposition, at least temporarily. Unlike al-Issa’s experience, al-Azm did not undergo an inferiorized normalization and was able to protect his social status in Syria.

Al-Qusus’ experience was similar due to his imperial networks, from which he benefitted even at the substantial distance as Cilicia. The following quotation from his memoirs provides an interesting demonstration of how Ottoman domains were well connected during wartime:

Although Cemal’s policies generated great dissatisfaction among Syrian society and caused their alienation from the empire, at least for the duration of his rule, the consequences of the deportation for exiles were not uniform. As noted earlier, some of the deportees deserted their places of exile and joined Sharif Hussein’s army. Others, however, were further “imperialized” when they returned from exile. Ilyas Bey Mutran, for instance, “was very glad for the experience and grateful to Jamal [sic] Pasha,” since “he gained a real knowledge of the Turkish people and was convinced that they had few equals in character and quality.”Footnote ⁸⁷ Mutran’s positive remarks about the Turkish should not, however, be interpreted as a positive opinion of his exile. He was presumably commenting on a single aspect of his experience rather than the whole relocation process. Otherwise he would not have preferred to return to Syria when allowed to do so.

Conclusion: failures, achievements, and return

The success of the Sharif Hussein’s revolt in Hijaz and the British expedition against Syria together with the shifting Ottoman-German concerns over the Arab landsFootnote ⁸⁸ signified a turning point for the Arab exiles in Anatolia,Footnote ⁸⁹ comparable with that of Cemal’s draconian policies in Syria.Footnote ⁹⁰ The failure to suppress the Sharifian revolt, in particular, increased the concerns of the central government regarding Cemal’s despotic policies and strengthened the hand of those who had argued that his draconian methods to strengthen Ottoman authority in Syria were fundamentally mistaken and would cause the total loss of the Arab provinces. At a global level, the French failure in Arras, the British collapse in Flanders, and the collapse of the Russian empire in 1917 increased Ottoman hopes for peace and convinced them that a compromise with the Arabs was necessary, to avoid any “inappropriate behaviour” during the negotiations. In addition, German military investments in Syria and Iraq such as the Yıldırım enterprise and Falkenhayn’s appointment to its command made retaining such a dominant figure as Cemal in Syria impossible.Footnote ⁹¹ The central government authorities consequently pioneered a new policy that gave primacy to an approach that would win back the “broken hearts” of the Arabs, and signified a reversal of the nationalist ideas and ideologies or “depoliticization” of the Syrian lands. The new situation enabled the central government authorities and Cemal’s opponents within the CUP to initiate a more moderate approach toward the Arabs in Syria and exiles in Anatolia which signified the end to the politics of normalization.Footnote ⁹²

This led to Cemal’s decision to resettle the Arab elites in Anatolia being openly challenged in government circles. In late 1916, Djavid Bey, the minister of finance and an implacable opponent of what Cemal had done in Syria, submitted a suggestion to the Ottoman cabinet proposing an amnesty for the exiles. In addition, immediately after his promotion to the Grand Vizierate in February 1917, Talat eased the situation of the Arab exiles in Anatolia. First, with Shakib Arslan’s commitment and the help of the other Arab deputies, Talat Pasha prevented the passing of a draft law requiring the exchange of the exiles’ properties in Syria with those in Anatolia. According to that draft, their properties in Syria would be distributed to the Turks and Armenians who would be resettled there.Footnote ⁹³ Talat’s legislative action constituted the first practical step to reversing former Ottoman policies and impeded further normalization of the exiles in Anatolia, increasing their hopes to return to Syria and thereby restoring their former social and political status.

The combined local, imperial, and global reasons brought about Cemal’s demise in Syria. Immediately after Cemal’s resignation from all his positions of authority in Syria the Ottoman cabinet decided to declare an amnesty for all exiled Syrians, allowing the return of women and children to their former homes as well as men under sixteen and above sixty years old. Those who were older than sixteen were not permitted given ongoing battles with British and Sharifian forces, and a consequent fear that their frustration with Cemal’s policies might lead them to cooperate with the enemy. However, they were able to travel between Anatolian provinces.Footnote ⁹⁴ Shakib Arslan states in his memoirs that this decision could not have been made without Talat Pasha’s support.Footnote ⁹⁵ They were also allowed to travel by train and, to facilitate their return, the Ministry of the Interior urged the Ministry of War to ensure that Syrians did not stay for long times in the stations.Footnote ⁹⁶ It appears that the age limit was also not strictly implemented. Tahsin Bey [Uzer], the governor of Damascus, states in a telegram that there were men older than sixteen who returned to Syria. He advised the government to pardon all the exiles in Anatolia, except those who were sent there by a court decision.Footnote ⁹⁷ Although the government waited until the very end of the war to declare a general amnesty for all the political exiles,Footnote ⁹⁸ they certainly facilitated the return of those who remained in Anatolia. Many applicants who substantiated their request by citing illness were allowed to return to their homes in Syria.Footnote ⁹⁹ In addition to the hardships of war and a longing for home, their loss of political agency and “normalization” in Anatolia made the exiles very enthusiastic to return to their homeland.

The politics of “normalization” neither secured complete success nor resulted in abject failure. The picture is not black and white. Cemal Pasha’s authoritarian regime was successful inasmuch as it kept Arab opponents out of Syrian politics and facilitated Cemal’s establishment of total control in the Syrian lands. An obvious failure was the complete alienation of many exiles from the empire, and their absconding from Anatolia to join the Sharifian army. Secondly, the very nature of the “normalization” practice itself constituted a reason for its failure. The “relocation” to Anatolia meant a permanent loss of social status as they were members of prominent families in Syria, even for those exiles who secured a very comfortable stay in their places of exile through their networks within Ottoman bureaucracy and due to good treatment by the Anatolian people. As such, the overwhelming majority of the exiles chose not to remain in Anatolia when they were allowed to return their homelands. Many of them became prominent politicians in post-Ottoman Syria like Riyaz al-Sulh, the prime minister of Lebanon.