Copyright by Eric Dean Covey 2014
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Copyright by Eric Dean Covey 2014 The Dissertation Committee for Eric Dean Covey certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: US MERCENARY ENCOUNTERS WITH THE OTTOMAN WORLD, 1805- 1882 Committee: Elizabeth Engelhardt, Supervisor Barbara Harlow Steven Hoelscher Angela Paik Matt Richardson US MERCENARY ENCOUNTERS WITH THE OTTOMAN WORLD, 1805- 1882 by Eric Dean Covey, A.B; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2014 Acknowledgements Thank you to my chair, Elizabeth Engelhardt, and to the members of my committee, Barbara Harlow, Steve Hoelscher, Naomi Paik, and Matt Richardson. Thank you to the Graduate School and the Department of American Studies at The University of Texas at Austin for their support for this project. Thank you to the members of the War Studies writing group, Andi Gustavson and Irene Garza. Thank you, Roberta Roberts, for everything. And above all, thank you to Alice Lehman, Grandma, without whom none of this would have been possible. I am so sad you did not make it to the finish line with me iv US Mercenary Encounters with the Ottoman World, 1805-1882 Eric Dean Covey, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2014 Supervisor: Elizabeth Engelhardt This dissertation examines nineteenth-century US mercenary encounters with the Ottoman world, including cases in which the United States employed American and foreign mercenaries for work in the Ottoman world and others in which Americans were employed as mercenaries by Ottoman regional governments. These mercenaries are often treated as historical footnotes, yet their encounters with the Ottoman world contributed to US culture and the texts they left behind continue to influence approaches to Africa and the Middle East. My analysis of these mercenary encounters and their legacies begins with the Battle of Derna in 1805—in which the US flag was raised above a battlefield for the first time outside of North America with the help of a mercenary army—and concludes with the British occupation of Egypt in 1882—which was witnessed by many of the US Civil War veterans who worked as mercenaries for the Egyptian government in the 1870s and 1880s. In four complementary case studies, I bring together sources that have been isolated from one another or never examined at length, including State Department documents, historic newspapers, first-person narratives, historiographical accounts, and—in terms of the contemporary resonance of the encounters I examine— films and documentary media. By focusing mercenary encounters in the Ottoman world through the lenses of memory, sovereignty, geography, and diplomacy, I reveal the ways in which mercenarism, while marginal in terms of its frequency and scope, produced important knowledge about the Ottoman world and helped to establish the complicated balance between intimacy and mastery that exists between Americans in the United States and people in Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Uganda, South Sudan, and Turkey. I argue v that mercenaries were significant tools of the state when other options were unavailable and that US imperialism in Africa and the Middle East—which still depends on mercenarism—is deeply rooted in nineteenth-century mercenary practices. My conclusions further trouble the distinction between legitimate state actors and mere soldiers of fortune that has been used to help draw the line between lawful and unlawful combatants in warfare, a foundational, yet extraordinarily fraught, component of international law. vi Table of Contents List of Illustrations ...................................................................................................x The Ottoman World ............................................................................................... xi Chronology of Events ........................................................................................... xii US MERCENARY ENCOUNTERS WITH THE OTTOMAN WORLD, 1805-1882 1 Introduction ..............................................................................................................1 Shifting the Focus from Missionaries to Mercenarism ............................................4 Methods and Organization .....................................................................................10 Contemporary Significance ...................................................................................22 1. REMEMBERING FOR EMPIRE: THE BATTLE OF DERNA; OR, THE MERCENARY ENCOUNTER THAT NEVER ENDS 27 Setting the Stage: The War with Tripoli, 1801-1805 .............................................31 Remembering the Battle of Derna in the Nineteenth Century ...............................37 Developing US Exceptionalism ....................................................................37 Remembering the Battle of Derna in the Twentieth Century ................................52 1928 to 1945 .................................................................................................52 The Cold War ................................................................................................58 Islamic Terror.........................................................................................................82 Conclusion: Real Americans at War ......................................................................88 2. SOVEREIGN EQUALITY AMONG MEN AND NATIONS: GEORGE BETHUNE ENGLISH IN THE OTTOMAN WORLD, 1815-1828 90 “A Solitary Man” ...................................................................................................95 With the US Mediterranean Squadron and Ismael Pasha in Egypt .....................108 Swallowed by the East ................................................................................110 Return to the United States .........................................................................121 vii The Ottoman Mediterranean as a Gateway to National Sovereignty ..................124 “In The Oriental Dress” ..............................................................................126 “The Great Ship that came from the New World” ......................................145 Mortifying Disappointment ........................................................................150 Conclusion: The Sovereign Afterlife and the Archive ........................................153 3. THE MONSTROUS GEOGRAPHY OF CENTRAL AFRICA 158 Back to Egypt .......................................................................................................163 From Maryland to Central Africa via Alexandria ................................................168 Central Africa: Naked Truths of Naked People ...................................................170 Buganda: Escalating Violence ....................................................................178 “Makraka”: Cannibals and Collecting ........................................................190 Conclusion: The Racial Geography of US Imperialism ......................................203 4. THE AMERICAN MISSION AND MERCENARY DIPLOMACY ON THE NILE, 1869- 1883 211 Mercenary Diplomacy .........................................................................................215 The Origins of the American Mission to Egypt ..........................................217 Chief of the Mercenaries .............................................................................225 Before the Uprising ..............................................................................................235 After the Uprising ................................................................................................241 “An American Girl in Cairo” ......................................................................252 Conclusion: The Obelisk and the Betrayal ..........................................................268 Bibilography ........................................................................................................274 viii List of Illustrations Illustration 1: “O, Say, Can You See!” ..................................................................62 Illustration 2: Team Osprey, from Armed Forces Journal ....................................86 Illustration 3: Chaillé-Long from My Life in Four Continents ............................190 ix The Ottoman World Based on a map at http://www.juancole.com. x Chronology of Events 1789-1807 Sultanate of Selim III 1801—1809 Presidency of Thomas Jefferson 1801—1805 US-Tripoli War 1804 November 25 William Eaton arrives in Alexandria 1805 April 27-June 12 Occupation of Derna by US forces June 18 Mehmed Ali becomes Viceroy of Egypt 1808—1839 Sultanate of Mahmud II 1809—1817 Presidency of James Madison 1813 George Bethune English publishes The Grounds of Christianity Examined 1815 US-Algeria War 1817—1825 Presidency of James Monroe 1821—1832 Greek War of Independence 1822 John Murray publishes the first edition of George Bethune English’s A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar in London 1825—1829 Presidency of John Quincy Adams 1827 The Battle of Navarino 1828 George Bethune English dies in Washington, DC 1829—1837 Presidency of Andrew Jackson 1830 Treaty of Friendship between the United States and the Ottoman Empire 1831 First American Legation in Istanbul 1839—1861 Sultanate of Abdülmecid I 1848 Ibrahim assumes Viceroyalty of Egypt, dies shortly Mehmed Ali dies in Cairo 1848-1854 Viceroyalty of Abbas Pasha in Egypt 1854—1863 Viceroyalty