Rise of the Young Turks

Politics, the Military and Ottoman Collapse

Naim Turfan

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2000
• ISBN:
  9780857716491
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Arms Control
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The military was the key political institution in early twentieth-century Turkey. Its duty was to save the state – a responsibility buried deeply in its ethos and tradition – and this was reflected in the young Turk movement. This book examines the historical conditions under which the Ottoman-Turkish military tradition was established, the role it played (especially in the Young Turk era) and the way it set the scene for the transformation from empire to nation-state, the Republic of Turkey. The book opens with a controversial interpretation of a speech by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in 1909 calling for the disengagement of the military from partisan politics. Then, after the methodological and broad social and historical settings provided in Parts One and Two respectively, the longest section (Part Three) covers the tumultuous events of the period 1908-1913 in close detail, and in a lively historical narrative with accompanying commentary. The epilogue looks forward through the transition years of the National Struggle to the military tradition in modern Turkey and other Ottoman successor states.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on Usage
• Prologue
• Part One On Military Politics
• The military as a key political institution
• Part Two The Military Tradition in The Ottoman Empire
• The Military Seal
• Part Three The Influence of the Military Tradition upon the Young Turks
• The politicization of the officer corps
• From the military’s intervention to its role as the political ruling group
• The military as the political ruling group
• Epilogue- Continuity of the military seal from Empire to nation-state
• Select Bibliography
• Index