Ottoman History Podcast - How War Changed Ottoman Society

Episode Date: October 3, 2019

Episode 429 with Yiğit Akın hosted by Chris Gratien and Susanna Ferguson Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud World War I brought unprecedented destruction to the Ottoman Empire and resulted in its fall of as a political entity, but war also produced new politics. In this podcast, Yiğit Akın is back to talk about his book When the War Came Home and how years of war transformed the Ottoman Empire. We discuss how the experience of the 1912-13 Balkan Wars reshaped Ottoman officials' understanding of modern warfare and informed decisions taken during the First World War. We also discuss the social history of the war for ordinary Ottoman citizens and consider how the particularities of the Ottoman case reveal new insights about WWI and its legacy. « Click for More »

Popular memory about World War I was very much alive all the way out to 1950s. That popular memory about seferberlik, people called the war as seferberlik, got pretty much lost and transformed under the huge impact of nationalist history writing. Yiğit Akin is the author of a new book entitled When the War Came Home. The more I studied World War I and its social history, the more I realized it's not really possible to think the Ottoman's Great War experience separately or isolated from the Balkan War experiences. Akın argues that the experience of the Balkan Wars taught the Ottoman leadership a number of lessons

and reshaped their understanding of modern combat and mobilization. Of all the major belligerents, the Ottomans were least prepared to fight such a huge and long conflict. And above all, the losses of the Balkan Wars underscored the potential stakes of another defeat. Another defeat, they were pretty sure, would spell the disintegration, the end of the empire. When the Ottomans entered the First World War in fall 1914, they lacked much of what this new industrial warfare required. The empire had few factories, far fewer railways, and less money than its adversaries in Great Britain, France, and Russia. The absence of those did not make the Ottoman War less total than the other belligerents.

The opposite is true. Mobilization required the labor of every person and animal in the empire, and the demands of war took a heavy toll on civilian populations throughout. Almost every neighborhood, almost every single village experienced disaster of the war. There was no escape for that. Join us in this conversation with Yiğit Akun. We'll not only examine the lived experience of the First World War, but also how that experience transformed Ottoman society and politics, leaving an impact that would last long after the fighting had stopped.

Welcome to the Ottoman History Podcast. I'm Chris Grayton. I'm Susie Ferguson. Today on the podcast, we're revisiting a familiar topic for our program, the Ottoman experience of the First World War. And this is a special episode because we have a return guest who I think about six years back came on the program to talk about his ongoing work on the subject of the Ottoman home front during the First World War. Yigit, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much, Chris. Thank you so much, Susie, for having me in this lovely but hot and humid Istanbul afternoon. Yes, an afternoon much like the

afternoon we recorded on six years ago when you were working on this project. Yigit Akın is now Associate Professor in the Department of History at Tulane University and the author of a published book with Stanford University Press called When the War Came Home. In this episode, we'll revisit some of the themes we talked about before, the social history of the First World War and the Ottoman Empire, but then we're going to talk more broadly about the subject of how war transformed the Ottoman Empire, the First World War, but also other wars that the Ottoman Empire was involved in in its last years. And so maybe that's the first place we can start. One of the new things you've introduced is the role of the

Balkan Wars as sort of a continuity with the experience of the First World War. Tell us more about why it's so important to start out with the Balkan Wars period for understanding the Ottoman experience of this global war. That's not a chapter that I had in the dissertation. That's one of the new chapters that I wrote from scratch. I mean, the reason for that is the more I studied World War I and its social history, the more I realized it's really unthinkable. It's not really possible to think World War I or the Ottoman Great War experience separately or isolated from the Balkan War experiences.

And the reason for that is Balkan War is really transformative experience for the Ottoman politics, military, Ottoman society. All of them were deeply, deeply affected by what happened in that short but catastrophic war for the Adamants. That's, of course, not the first war of the Adamants or first modern war of the Adamants. They fought, like, for example, a disastrous 93 Harbi,

was an Adamant war. Then in 1897, they fought a smaller war against the Greeks and they won it. They lost it on the table, but they won it on the battlefield. That's a much smaller scale. And again in Tripoli, they fought in 1911, which led to the loss of the last remaining African territory of the Ottomans. But none of them were as transformative as the Balkan wars. Balkan wars were important to understand the Great War experience for two reasons, basically. One of them, it allowed the defeat, the catastrophic defeat in the First Balkan War,

allowed the Unionists to observe and take lessons about the modern war, about how the warfare has changed in the previous decades. They observed this very clearly, they observed this very disastrously, but they took good lessons. They took lessons, the most important lesson they took from that experience is a horrible realization. The realization that they cannot really, or the Ottoman state in general, cannot really mobilize its resources for a modern war. It cannot mobilize its material resources. It cannot mobilize, more importantly, it cannot mobilize its manpower resource. If you read, for example, the issues of 1913 tenet, this is the Unionist mouthpiece, right? They continuously talk about the reasons of the defeat and they continuously underline the failure of the empire to mobilize. continuously underline the failure of the empire to mobilize. You note in the book that you find the Ottoman Empire sort of uniquely unable to mobilize these resources, both in the Balkan War

period and then later on in the Great War. Why do you think that is? First of all, they identify, the Unionists identify a couple reasons. The most important reason is they don't have the necessary tools to do that. By tools, they mean the laws, regulations, policies, and the ground. And as a result, when I mentioned the lessons, one of the most important,

if not the most important lesson taken from the Balkan Wars is the need for a more comprehensive law of conscription. Hence, May 1914, extremely comprehensive, extremely tight new law of conscription, which required every single Ottoman male but the royal family, members of the royal family, and obliged them to do their military service. So that's something unprecedented in the Ottoman history. So the Ottomans entered the Great War

with that comprehensive new law of conscription. Did that include the empire's non-Muslim subjects? It does. It does. It did not leave them out. Later, one of the most important things that the law did, for example, to limit the bedel to peacetime. Which was the exchange that you could pay instead of serving in the

military. Exactly, exactly. And that was a very common practice. Up to that time, up to the Balkan Wars and later, most of the well-to-do upper middle class and upper class Ottomans did not serve in the army because they paid this exemption fee and basically got exempted from service. Throughout the war, since the Ottoman economy and finances were so bad, they still felt obliged to continue this practice because the exemption fee generated enormous money. I mean, enormous in the Ottoman terms, enormous money for the Ottomans. They had to cancel this in 1916 because of the manpower shortages.

So this is one of the lessons that they learned from the Balkan War is that they actually need much tighter and wider conscription policies to keep up with the sort of exigencies of modern warfare. You talk about a couple of other things in the book, other lessons that they learned or other kind of transformations that started during the Balkan War period.

One having to do, I think, with the rise of sort of a certain kind of religious rhetoric or a relationship between the Ottoman state and non-Muslim communities. And also, maybe this is a related question of what happens to an older notion of Ottomanism in which, you know, all of the many multi-religious, multi-ethnic communities of the empire were supposed to live and fight together. What are the lessons of the Balkan War period on that front? When I said the Balkan War transformed the Ottoman society, it dramatically transformed the Unionists or really governments and states approached society. And that's one of the most important things that they did.

First of all, I mean, together with the conscription laws, they also realized that the modern wars cannot be fought without the contribution, significant contribution of the civil society. So that's a very important lesson for them. They hadn't really thought about it before. And even they did, they did not have policies to do that. So one of the first things that you see after the disaster of the first Balkan war is the establishment of a widespread network of civil society organizations. So Müdafaa-i Milliyece Minete and its corollary organizations.

And this is a very extensive, extensive in the sense of the Ottoman Empire, extensive organization which draw the or which required the cooperation of the local elites in the provinces of the Ottoman Empire, brought that big campaign, for example, slightly later, that big navy campaign to strengthen the Ottoman navy against the Greeks, because this is the war that the Unionists expected in 1914. They were sure they will fight a war pretty soon against the Greeks, and the need for a stronger navy was a very important pillar of their transformed political psyche and in that sense their understanding of the others in the Ottoman Empire transformed as well. So sometimes if you read the literature about Balkan Wars we assume that the Ottomans started this war you know with a Turkish ideology, it wasn't that accurate. I mean, the Balkan wars for the Ottomans was a non-religious war, a

non-religious conflict at the beginning. But one other lesson, one other observations they made during the war was that their enemies used religion or religious rhetoric, to be more accurate, very extensively. Bulgarians especially resorted to that type of rhetoric against the Ottomans, and they clearly observed that it works very well. So, slightly after that, even before the Unionists came to power in 1913, they quickly started to use religious rhetoric, sending, for example, students of the religious seminaries to the front and to preach more extensively, to use

religious symbols more extensively. The Balkan Wars did not make the Ottomans Turks. They did not make them Turkist, but they clearly raised questions about non-Muslims' loyalty to the empire. So loyalty in the sense that they were not really willing to fight. That's one of the reasons, one of the lessons or one of the observations they made this is pretty much inaccurate but at least by late by the second half of 1913 they were very clear about this so they saw other people other polities using religious rhetoric very successfully to mobilize not only soldiers

but as you previously mentioned you know all other parts of social life to a war effort. And so they began to think, oh, perhaps we too could use this. Exactly. That's what they did. That's what they did. I mean, the rhetoric changed very quickly from a more civic, Ottomanist, citizenship-based military experience to a more, you religiously oriented rhetoric which they observed works work very well and you know not to mobilize the society but also to encourage the soldiers to stay on the front and fought as bravely as willingly as possible hence one of the speculations

or maybe not that speculative anymore jihad which they declared in November 1914, I and some other important researchers argue that is actually more inward-looking process, more of a tool to mobilize Ottoman society as much as a tool to mobilize the colonies or the Muslims in the colonies against the Great Britain and France. Let's talk a little bit about what is the inward-looking jihad. I mean, one of the things that you also found in your work, it seems, is that the Ottoman efforts to mobilize both soldiers and everybody else for the war effort, for the war effort during, like starting with World War I, met some resistance or tiredness or disquiet on the part of the inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire. So maybe you could tell us a little bit more about that relationship between what the state thought

it needed for the war effort and how people responded. At the beginning of that set of questions about Balkan wars, I said there were two major factors that, or two major ways that the Balkan wars affected the unionists. One of them is the policies. I mean, the new conscription law, civil society organizations, et cetera.

The second one is they dramatically, the defeat dramatically changed their psyche. Their political understanding of the present and the future. They clearly put them in a more apocalyptic sense. They began to see the future in an apocalyptic sense. They were sure

that there will be a war, another war pretty soon. That's one thing. All of them almost unanimously they thought that. They did not expect a world war. And second, another defeat,

they were pretty sure would spell the disintegration, the end of the empire. That's a very grim realization for them. So to avoid that, they did everything in their capacity and one of them is of course to resort to this more religious oriented rhetoric to for example eliminate all possible political rivals so that's also a continuation of that process both within the

military and without so that's also you, sort of cleaning the political scene from the real and potential enemies or rivals. I mean, making the parliament more or less meaningless. Right. Filling this 1914 elections basically was an election without competition. Right. You're referring to the elimination of internal rivals within the empire for the Committee of Union Progress. Exactly. Undoing this sort of liberal multi-party order that had emerged just years prior.

Exactly. But if we focus on these, exclusively on these things, we may get the wrong impression that the society was in line as well. Right. The society got radicalized, got filled with the notions and feelings of revenge. So my observations was actually pretty much the opposite. So we need more studies about this. And here is a very good dissertation subject.

If you have listeners who are looking for a dissertation subject, that's a good dissertation subject to look on, to focus on. My impression is, while the unionists, members of the Committee of Union Progress, get those lessons, the war, the Balkan war, defeat in the Balkan, also brought war and all the disasters associated with the war to the door of the Ottomans. So that's the first thing, that's the first time since the 93rd Army, since 1877, 77, 78, for the first time the Ottomans came so close to a war.

And war in the sense of widespread conscription. The Balkan War mobilization was also pretty comprehensive. Hundreds of thousands of refugees flooding through the streets of Istanbul. Every single person, I would argue, in Istanbul probably met with the disaster of these Muslim refugees. And also a very clear idea, that's also kind of controversial,

a very clear idea that the Ottoman Empire was not ready to fight such a big war, such a modern war. Because the Ottoman performance was not that, was pretty disastrous, pretty horrible. And people realized this, people, by the end of the first Balkan War and afterwards, the most common feeling in the society was war awareness.

I mean, people were already tired. Balkan Wars, in comparison to World War I, Balkan Wars was a short experience, right? But people got very tired because of its consequences. Right. And as you say, war, more than any other time in the recent Ottoman history, was coming very close to home. Indeed, When the War Came Home is the title of your book. We'll take a quick music break. We're going to talk more about that book and more about what this huge disconnect between what the CUP, the Committee of Union Progress, saw as the needs of the empire

and what could be expected from the everyday subjects meant for the experience of war and how that experience of war transformed Ottoman society. Stay tuned. İstanbul'dan Çıktım Başım Selamet İstanbul'dan Çıktım Başım Selamet Çanakkale'ye varmadan koku kıyamet, oh gençliğim eyvah. Çanakkale'ye varmadan koku kıyamet, oh gençliğim eyvah. Welcome back to Ottoman History Podcast. Chris Grayton and Susie Ferguson here with a return guest, Yigit Akun, author of a book entitled When the War

Came Home, The Ottoman's Great War and the Devastation of an Empire, recently out from Stanford University Press. Indeed, Yit Akin is one of many scholars who are part of a new turn in the historiography of the First World War that has been especially, I think, rich within the field of Ottoman studies. At the end of our conversation, we're going to talk about some of the new historiographical questions that have emerged, some of the major debates that are still being discussed within this field with our guest, Yigit Akin. But first, we're going to talk more about that book

and more about the subject of how war transformed the Ottoman Empire. We want to emphasize this is a really crucial question for our guests who are trying to understand the broader implications of the First World War for the Ottoman Empire, because a lot of times in our broader narrative of the history of the Middle East, we tend to emphasize continuities between the period before the First World War and what came after in the Republic of Turkey and post-Ottoman states. However, we have to also confront that while the war didn't necessarily change everything, it is a major period of transformation, not necessarily a break or rupture, but something that really needs to be grappled with in terms of a transformative force for culture and society and politics.

So what we wanted to ask you, Yigit, is if I had been an Ottoman subject living between the years of 1914 and say 1918 or even 1922, what are the major transformations that I would have seen or even experienced? Well, many things, because this was a pretty busy period. If you're a man between the ages of 20 and 45, most probably you will be conscripted. I mean, conscription usually means four long years of service under difficult circumstances.

Transportation under difficult circumstances. Transportation under difficult circumstances, inadequate food, inadequate clothing, usually inadequate ammunition, depending on the front where you are. Long walks, injury, disease, most probably death. So that's the man's experience for that age cohort. And as I discuss it in the book, that age cohort expanded unprecedentedly throughout the war. And by the end of the war, the Ottomans, at least on paper, they tried to conscript men

between the ages of 17 and 55. But in reality, that was also even bigger, even larger than that. So if you are a man, most probably, if you are in the provinces, most probably, But in reality, that was also even bigger, even larger than that. So if you are a man, most probably, if you are in POW camps, either in Burma or, you know, Russia or Egypt. That will extend your time away from your family. If you are in the provinces, you'll most probably see the impressment of your only farm animal into army service. So the loss of that animal is usually spelled a disaster for

the families, for these poor families. If you are a woman, you'll most probably see a dramatic decline in your ability to survive and to maintain the livelihood of your family. This will force you into all kinds of businesses and interactions that you didn't do before. Women, I mean, of course, before the war, the Great War worked pretty hard, especially in agriculture, but also in the cities. But the war forced women to be employed in forced transportation, for example. Army used women very extensively. Or forced agricultural service. Or you will, in addition to all the house chores you do, taking care of your family, taking care of your farm,

you'll do all kinds of agricultural work, which is very hard. So if you are a woman, expect that kind of very hard work as the recent works of Elif Mayer, Metin Soy, of very hard work as the recent works of Elif Mayr, Metin Soy, or Kate Denny's dissertation, or Chi Demo's showed in their recent works. If you are in the cities, the life, you know, in addition to that, I mean, maybe also in the provinces as well, but, you know, poverty and very difficult life conditions expects you. So war pushes, especially in the second half of the war, the wartime conditions and the absence of man pushes you into deep poverty

and all kind of crime and prostitution and other things that the war came. If you are in the Arab provinces, a big famine is probably what you will expect or what you will experience. In 1915, 1916, as our readers know, as our listeners know very well, Lebanon and Syria experienced a very deep and devastating famine

caused partly by the Ottoman wartime policies, partly by the locusts, partly by the blockade, but all in all, you know, killed at least 300,000, somewhere between 300,000 and 400,000 people. So that, in that sense, may very well be a case as well. If you are in the East, if you are a Muslim, most probably you will escape from the advance of the Russian army. So that one and a half million maybe Muslims, Ottoman Muslims, both Kurdish and Turkish and other Muslims, fled from the incoming advancing Russian army

under very disastrous circumstances. In the last chapter of the book, again a new chapter that I wrote while I revised my dissertation, I also talk about the, you know, disastrous circumstances of those Muslim refugees. If you're an Armenian, that's a very different experience as well, as the recent literature shows very well. Despite the graveness of the wartime circumstances, the unions did not hesitate to engage in demographic engineering projects. One of them is, of course, the deportation and eventual annihilation of a million of Ottoman Armenians. You were forced to leave your ancient homelands on your death march. ancient homelands on your you know that march you'll probably most probably will be attacked by you know tribes or by you know by some chetes if you are lucky enough to survive that long march

and ended up in the desert syrian desert life there is also will also be very, very difficult. So the Armenian genocide in that sense is the horrible experience what most Armenians went through and ended up with the devastation of one of the ancient peoples of the Middle East. So these are just a few things that the war caused. Right. And all this is part of the Ottoman defeat, but of course a larger expression of how incredibly destructive and impactful the war was for people. And to say that war is destructive is a point worth reiterating, but it's not where the historical processes stop, right? Each of these mass phenomena that occurs, whether mobilization or agrarian collapse, let's say, or mass

displacement that occurs, each of them prompt responses from both the central state and the military and local society. Can you talk more about those responses, the changes within Ottoman society that unfolded amidst these developments? That's a very important question because in the literature we have studies, more and more studies, luckily more and more studies detailing the devastation that the war caused. In the book I try to put them in an analytical framework and argue that the war and wartime conditions and that specific mentality that we discussed in the first part that the unions found themselves in pushed them or obliged them to intervene

into the deepest corners of the empire to mobilize men and resources as never before. So in that sense, the war intensified the interaction between the state and society, if you can use these abstract terms. But this was not a new process. I mean, the Ottoman state, the relationship between the Ottoman state and its subjects and citizens was already intensifying since at least mid-19th century, right? mid-19th century, right? All, you know,

trans-Semantic reforms and afterwards with the establishment of a modern educational framework, gradually expanding military service, the state established, you know, a new taxation, the system of taxation, all kind of policies

that we know now, learning from the new literature, intensified the relationship between the state and society. But the war, starting with the Balkan Wars and continued with the Great War, of course, intensified that process unprecedentedly. More and more people, almost everywhere throughout the empire,

not became the subject, but got interacted with the agents of the Ottoman state, with the discourses of the Ottoman state, with the policies of the Ottoman state, with the discourses of the Ottoman state, with the policies of the Ottoman state. And, you know, state became a reality in their everyday lives. That's the problem. So they, every day, they experience some sort of intervention from the state into their lives. into their lives. That, I argue in this book, had a disastrous consequence for the Ottoman society.

So can you talk more about the ramifications of this overall intensification of the state-society relationship? Because it's not a necessarily smooth relationship. It's a very forced intensification. That's very brutal. It's not only intense, those interjections. They're not only unprecedentedly intense, but also very brutal.

Usually involved violence, usually involved forced impressment of the animal, or taking your last scrap of grain. So these are not really smooth and voluntary processes. Taking your last scrap of grain. So these are not really smooth and voluntary processes. Usually, a significant amount of violence was involved in those interactions. The most important ramification, as far as I can see, when looking at that period, is a deep legitimacy crisis. A deep crisis of legitimacy,

not only for the Unionists. Unionists, from the very beginning, as we discussed in the first part, from the very beginning, fought an uphill war to legitimize this war to Ottoman people. This is why they invested, as I discussed in the second chapter of the book, they invested very heavily in rhetoric

to show the Ottomans or to describe mobilization in defensive terms. So we were attacked. We have to protect our honor. We have to protect the empire. Even though the reality was the reverse. They were the ones who attacked Russia. As the war progressed, that crisis of legitimacy got deepened and became even more destructive, even deeper as these interactions got more intensified, became more brutal. And in a way, it goes to what Chris was saying earlier about seeing the war as a moment of change, not just continuity from earlier periods, right? Because the state building of the late 19th century was also invasive and was also, you know, the state was far more present in people's lives

than it had previously been, but it wasn't perhaps quite as coercive as it becomes during World War I, right? Exactly, exactly. I mean, this is why war was a special period and this is why the ramifications, all those ramifications are much more, much deeper and much more important

for the future of the empire, for the future of the empire for the fate of the empire i mean i argue in this book that legitimacy crisis by the end of the war was not only about the unionist and unionist government and their wartime policies they were almost unanimously were hated um and you know think about that sivas congress the uh the major nationals congress in 1919 took an oath to say that basically they were not unionist they don't aim to revive unionist uh the committee of union and progress so they were all they were so unanimously hated um in empire but that legitimacy crisis what was also about uh the state was also about the empire itself.

Because, you know, as I said, as a result of those four long years and four intensified and brutal interaction, people got a better idea, I mean, better quote-unquote, got a better idea, clearer idea about what state is, what state was. The state for them, at least in those four years, was a coercive force, terribly coercive force, which conscripted their only breadwinner, which impressed their only farm animal, which got their last scrap of grain, which forced them to move to different places, distant places. But in the case of the crisis, in the case of the advancing enemy, something, an organization which could not protect them, which could not prevent, for example, for profiteering, which cannot prevent inflation, which cannot maintain their lives. So that's basically a useless organization by the end of the world. So what did this mean for those who would come after?

What did this mean for those who would come after? I mean, so for those who wanted to build a new state after World War I? That was kind of an advantage for them, I would argue. I mean, this is actually something that I study for my next book. So the next four years between 1918 and 1922 is, I don't want to exaggerate that, but equally eventful. Equally eventful because you see the slow disintegration. Unlike, I mean, that's something I have to emphasize and that's something I remind by German and Austria-Hungarian, historians of Germany and Austria-Hungary.

Unlike them, the Ottoman Empire did not dissolve by 1918, but continued all the way to 1922, right? And those four years also saw even deeper transformations in Anatolia this time, because the Arab provinces were out of the Ottoman Empire. There were transformations as well. That was kind of an advantage for them, because the Ottoman state, as I said, as a result of these interactions, got lost most of its legitimacy in the eyes of the ordinary people.

But that's also a disadvantage for them because the people had a very clear idea what war is. So what, I mean, they, even better idea than the Balkan Wars, even better idea. By the beginning of 1919, if you read the memoirs of the nationalist and later

Kemalist officers, you clearly see the idea how difficult it is to mobilize people for one more war. They hated that deeply and very passionately. As we know, between 1919 and 1921, there were a bunch of revolts throughout the Anatolia, and the National Historiography put them together and usually blamed that this was a job of either the British spies or reactionaries. I would argue these were mostly anti-mobilization, anti-war, anti-unionist revolts, people show their mostly show their reaction against one more process of mobilization one more process of war right because as we didn't mention it but one of the other consequences in this legitimacy of this legitimacy crisis is of course desertion leaving the fronts

people won't go to war a A huge percentage of the Ottoman army, they unilaterally leave the war before the Ottomans surrender, right? They desert and run away. Exactly. I mean, Mehmet Beşikçi wrote very extensively about this, right? By the end of then, if you read the reports by German officers or a famous report in 1917 by the the founder of the republic mustafa kemal then the commander of the seventh army in aleppo um he very extensively talks about how difficult uh or how how how terrible the rates of desertion are and by the end of the war by 1918 um maybe

500 000 people 500 000 soldiers think about 500,000 soldiers had already deserted the army, were roaming the mountains in Anatolia and the Arab provinces. So that's basically reaction against the war. And these numbers exponentially grew in 1917 and 1918. By the time, after 19, after somewhere in the second half of the war, the Ottoman Empire lost its capacity to re-recruit these people,

re-conscript these people. So none of the policies, none of the regulations worked, sentencing them or, you know, none of them worked. And, you know, the army basically melted away in that sense. But interestingly, I mean, you expect that in the face of such a grim desertion rates, the army might have ceased to fight, right? This didn't happen.

All the way to the end of the war, the Ottoman army remained in the battlefield, even though in a much smaller scale. But in that sense, was pretty resilient. So that's also, that surprised its enemies and its allies at the same time. That's also something interesting that we have to underline, I guess.

And maybe this is something we can leave for the next book, but we'll just ask for a little preview since you've already alluded to it. Given the war fatigue that existed by the end of the Balkan Wars and the First World War among the populace, given the unpopularity

of the Committee on Union Progress and its agenda, how did a military fighting force largely led but not exclusively led by former central cup figures maybe not the most central figures um managed to uh enlist a broader anatolian population maybe people who had even deserted during the first world War to fight in a new war against the multi-front, sort of a multi-front war against different armies that resulted in the Republic of Turkey? That's also a very good question, right? I mean,

this is why we need newer studies about the national struggle, Kurdistan, about that period, right? And also on its military aspects, because the desertion rates, I mean, first thing we have to emphasize, national struggle in its scope and intensity was much smaller one than the Great War, right? That's the first thing that we have to take note of. But, having said that, desertion rates were also very high during the nationalist campaign, nationalist struggle between 1919 and 1922. How did they manage to, how did the nationalist campaign, nationalist struggle between 1919 and 1922. How did they manage to, how did the nationalist officer or nationalist leadership manage to enlist these people? I argue two things.

One of them, they also, like the Unionists before, I mean, some of them themselves were Unionists and were still Unionists, they learned the lessons of the Great War very well. So, because all of them, most of them, were active officers on the field, they studied those lessons and conditions very deeply and very accurately. This time, however, those lessons worked for their success. So they did not experience, for example, those huge logistics problems that really destroyed the Ottoman army's fighting capacity in World War I. They learned those lessons and they used violence very extensively through Istiklal Mahkemeleri to enlist these people. Violence was also part of that. Coercion was part of that. But in addition to that,

they also used propaganda very extensively. They used that nationalist, Islamist propaganda in a really creative, in a really creative, innovative way to enlist people. Of course, the most important reason, I would argue,

that people became willing to fight one more time is the coming of the enemy. And this time, very real. Occupation of Izmir in May 1919 was a really turning point, really important turning point, which made people aware of the gravity of the ramification of the consequences of the war. And also a big mistake on the part of the French coming with Armenian legionnaires in the southern front. People realized that if they did not resist, those Greeks and Armenians would come, occupy their provinces, most probably will take away their properties, and, you know, a much more difficult life would expect them.

So that realization, at least on the part of the provincial elites, was the most important reason that they decide to support the nation's struggle. Even though they did not agree with everything with the nation's leadership. You know, one of the sort of big things to learn from your book is that moments where the state intervenes in people's lives in this like extremely violent way produce different outcomes for different people across different geographies and genders, right? And that, you know, it sets up a kind of like interesting set of conditions for the nationalist project that came directly after. And that, you know, to consider, which in some ways, you know,

continues until the present in Turkey as in many other places. So, you know. Exactly, exactly. I mean, that's the, and one interesting thing is that memory, that popular memory about World War I was very much alive all the way up to 1950s. I mean, in this book, I show some examples in the form of laments or, you know, folk songs or folk stories. That pretty much alive especially in 1930s

i gave an example in the book in every single village that yashar kemal visited in 1930s he listened to ballads he listened to uh laments about world war one so that popular memory popular memory about seferberlik people called the war as seferberlik, got pretty much lost and transformed over time under the huge impact of nationalist history writing. Çanakkale içimde vurdular beni Önmeden mezara koydular beni Gençliğim eyvah Önmeden mezara duydular beni, o meşme-i meyve. Çanakkale

Çanakkale içinde bir dolu teslim Çanakkale içinde bir dolu teslim So So I want to ask both of you, as a scholar who doesn't work primarily on World War I, there has obviously been in the past, say, 10 years, an enormous outpouring of work on this sort of 4 to 6 to 10 year period. What are the things that people are really arguing about in this kind of new wave of scholarship? That's an important observation, Susie. I mean, as you said, in the last 10 years, 15 years maybe, the center of gravity of the scholarship about World War I has shifted, I would say, into more, you know, innovative, creative dimensions. Now we see studies about the social life, about the culture, about memory, about women, about provinces, about famine, and, of course, more and more studies about Armenian genocide.

So that center of gravity has shifted from the diplomatic and military history towards a more, you know, social and cultural history. But also, I mean, those other fields, military and diplomatic history, experienced their own renaissances in themselves. They became higher quality. They became much more sophisticated in communication, in dialogue with the broader scholarship on World War I. Yigit, another thing I've observed in the transformation of the scholarship

on the First World War that's been taking place within Ottoman studies is that it's very much happening in tandem with a broader transformation of the global scholarship of the war that has occurred with increased interest in, say, colonial experiences of the war, so African or South Asian or East Asian personnel

in European armies during the war, interest in the historical experience of the quote-unquote non-West going beyond the great powers. When you go to conferences on the First World War, increasingly these settings, in which the Ottoman Empire is positioned very interestingly, sort of as an outlier from some of the other European states, these settings take a very prominent role. So what do you think are some of the main points about the Ottoman experience of the First World War that speak to this larger historiography that maybe even change how we understand the war more broadly in a fundamental way, what are the ways in which the Ottoman experience

maybe is somehow unique, but also perhaps exemplary of some of the questions that concern scholars today? Now we are much more in dialogue, in communication with our colleagues who study France's, Germany's, Great Britain's colonies, great war experiences as well you know, Lawrence, T.E. Lawrence used the term sideshow for the Ottoman Empire

so those sideshows, not only the Ottoman Empire but all kind of sideshows became pretty much central to the study of the Great War now there is much more interest in the colonies how the colonial people understand and experience and perceive the war and what kind of

ramifications they had, enormous ramifications for the afterwards. In India in the whole Wilsonian moment, the whole Wilsonian moment is a direct response to developments in World War I and then the disappointment

of the colonial people who experienced that process, you know, Gandhi and the Indians are the most important example, but, you know, as were as well. So people are much more interested and much more passionate to learn about those colonial experiences, which had been seen as sideshows and other type of sideshows.

Also, the experience of the Ottoman Empire, the experience of these lesser belligerents, lesser in the sense of not of those three major industrialized powers, but also the experience of Bulgaria, the experience of Serbia, experience of the neutrals. Persia experienced a great famine, even though it was a neutral country right you know we study we still need social

histories of Persia or Iran in in World War one 25 percent of its population got devastated as a result of famine so that's a big disaster and its memory got also lost in Iran so that's also a very interesting thing. But also, you know, other neutral guy in China, for example, there's a big interest in World War I because the Chinese more and more under this new, you know, these new times, in these new times, Chinese came to understand World War I as their own transformative moment.

In Japan, there is such an interest in, you know, everywhere, especially these, you know, lesser Belgians, there is a huge interest in World War I. One other point when thinking about this Ottoman experience in a broader context that strikes me when I read your work, Yigit, is that, you know, if you read your work, Yigit, is that, you know, if you read about the experience of World War I in Europe, it was kind of like the war was taking place at the fronts. People were getting a very sanitized version back home of what the war was like. And it was only after the war, seminal works like All Quiet on the Western Front,

people who weren't soldiers fighting in the war any sense of how devastating on a mass scale the first world war was that it was only in world war ii with more extensive aerial bombing and these types of things of course the holocaust and major demographic engineering in europe that the war came home, the Second World War. But the Ottoman experience is an example of that same transformation happening during a much earlier period of history. Is it possible to see the Ottoman experience of the First World War not only as the demise of an old imperial system, but also as a preface to what's unfolding in the European state system and kind of comes to fruition during the

Second World War. Exactly. I mean, that's also a question in line with your previous question, which I forget to answer while I was talking about the historiography. The parallel, the similarities and differences of the Ottoman experience of Great War. What can studying Ottoman Great War experience teach us or teach everyone about the broader World War I experience, right? That's the question. And this question is also in relation with that one. In this book, I argue that the Ottoman experience in one sense was similar to other belligerent

experiences, because all of them experienced that huge problem of mobilizing enormous numbers and keeping those huge armies on the battlefield for four long years. So that's a big problem. That's a big issue for everyone. Everyone struggled with that. But what made the Ottoman Empire different or, you know, important for comparison, the Ottomans did not have the tools to do that. The empire did not, I mean, in this book, I have a sentence that I like, the Ottomans tried to fight this first truly industrialized war of the modern era without having an industry. So the Ottoman industry was in its infancy. I mean, it was very modest. The Ottoman

Empire did not have a sound financial system, did not have an extensive transportation network, which was actually very rudimentary, did not have a productive agricultural economy, did not have extensive demographic resources. Of all the major belligerents of the war, the Ottomans were probably the least prepared to fight such a huge and long conflict. So I guess the absence of those major components of modern warfare made Ottoman Empire important for comparison. Why? Because the absence of those did not make the Ottoman war less total than the other belligerents. The opposite is true. In this book, I argue the opposite is true. So the absence, in the face of the absence of these major components of modern warfare, what did the Unionists do?

They intervened even more. They experienced with newer policies. I mean, hundreds of new laws were passed. They were constantly experimented to intervene into the society to extract resources and manpower. At the end, the absence of those things that I said made the war for the Ottomans even more total, probably, for the Ottoman population. Even more total than the other belligerents' wartime experiences. And that's in relation with your second question. So the Ottoman people were very much aware of the disaster that they experienced because they experienced this very much

in their everyday life. And for the first time in the empire's history, in those numbers. It wouldn't be an exaggeration. Except for a very small section of the society, almost every neighborhood, almost every single village experienced disaster of the war. There was no escape for that. Well, on that note, Yiğit, we'll bring this conversation to a close. Thank you so much for coming on. It's your second time on the program,

but I certainly learned a lot in this second conversation as well. Thanks a lot, and let me appreciate the Adamant History podcast one more time. So, thousands of people are listening to you guys from all around the world. That's a great, great service to the

field of Adamant Studies. We try service to the field of Ottoman studies. We try not to think too much about that. Well, we will end this by also thanking those thousands of you who have stayed to the end of this really, I think, comprehensive discussion of the Ottoman war experience and indeed the subject of how war transformed the Ottoman Empire and war transformed Ottoman society. We want to remind you, as always, we've got a bibliography on our website,

ottomanhistorypodcast.com, where you can find more reading and also check out the book of Yigit Akın, When the War Came Home. We invite you to leave your comments and questions on the page or in our Facebook group. Get in touch with the tens of thousands of people who are out there following and commenting on our podcast. That's all for this episode. Join us next time in another episode of Ottoman History Podcast. Thank you.