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The Ottoman Legacy and Neo-Ottomanism: a Review Article

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The Ottoman Legacy and Neo-Ottomanism: a Review Article REVIEW ARTICLE THE OTTOMAN LEGACY AND NEO-OTTOMANISM: A REVIEW ARTICLE The Ottoman Legacy and Neo-Ottomanism: A Review Article OZAY MEHMET Carleton University, Canada ORCID: 0000-0002-3179-1699 The Berlin-Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany’s Bid for World Power By Sean McMeekin Boston: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010, 496 pages, $22.50, ISBN: 9780141957296 The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300-1600 By Halil İnalcık London: Phoenix, 2001, 272 pages, $19.95, ISBN: 9781842124420 Nostalgia for the Empire: The Politics of Neo-Ottomanism By Hakan M. Yavuz New York: Oxford University Press, 2020, 335 pages, $34.56, ISBN: 9780197512289 Insight Turkey 2020 Vol. 22 / No. 4 / pp. 253-260 Received Date: 09/09/2020 • Accepted Date: 12/10/2020 • DOI: 10.25253/99.2020224.14 2020 Fall 253 REVIEW ARTICLE OZAY MEHMET he ghost of the Ottomans still Despite its title, The Berlin-Baghdad haunts us a century after the Express is less about railroad geo- Tbloodless death of the dynasty politics than about the general World at the creation of the Modern Turkish War I (WWI) history. Specifically, Republic. The increasing attention the strategic and economic role of of Turkey towards the Middle East the German railway project is in- and the Balkans in its foreign policy adequate, in comparison to, for ex- is one reason for this haunting, but ample, the saga of the warships Goe- the outpouring of books by histori- ben and Breslau. All the standard ans is surely another. Yet we are still topics, such as Enver Paşa’s ill-fated far away from an objective account adventure in Sarıkamış, Cemal Paşa’s of why the House of Osman com- misrule in Syria and his mismanaged mitted ‘suicide’ at the hands of the campaign is Suez, as well as Mustafa Young Turks by going ‘all-in’ to the Kemal’s miraculous victory in Gal- European imperialist war in 1914, at lipoli, are all there, albeit sometimes the very birth of the new Automobile unevenly. Age, when all the oil wealth of the Middle East, as we know it today, lay McMeekin’s treatment of Turkish na- underground in the vast Arabian des- tionalism is thin and short, Kemalist ert, all in Ottoman hands, and, with ideology is under-estimated and the smart politicians rather than the ju- War of Independence is minimal. venile dictatorship at the helm of the Pan-Islamism is there, especially the Sultan’s government, could have fa- German Emperor’s exploitation of cilitated a way forward to prosperity. this empty ideology. But Ottoman- ism was overtaken by Turkism. Pan- The three books selected for review Turanism, favored by Enver Paşa, here shed new light on the current was similarly an ideological mirage popularity of Neo-Ottomanism and lost in the Caucausian mountains. the bloody endgame of the Empire in McMeekin misses all of the ideologi- 1918. cal undercurrents. The reader looks, in vain, for a discussion of the ris- ing modern Turkish nationalism, the The Berlin-Baghdad Express role of the fiery patriots such as Ha- lide Edip Adıvar. Instead of the long Based on extensive archival research epilogue on Zionism, provided at the in Turkey and elsewhere, McMeekin end of the book (pp. 340-366), Mc- has produced a useful book, com- Meekin should have offered his views parable to several recent contribu- of Kemalist Turkey. tions by Western historians on the Ottoman endgame. It is more bal- McMeekin’s title suggested a histori- anced than, for example, Eugene cal account of German economic and Rogan’s The Fall of the Ottomans, al- financial imperialism, a sequel and though each one has its own merits updating of Edward Mead Earle’s and demerits. classic study of Turkey, the great 254 Insight Turkey THE OTTOMAN LEGACY AND NEO-OTTOMANISM: A REVIEW ARTICLE powers, and the Baghdad Railway. light years of the Ottomans. The Ger- Chapter 2, however, gives scant infor- mans used adventurist Enver Paşa, mation about the financing details of and a Sultan with a deep mistrust of the contract awarded to the Deutsche the French and English, in a global Bank and the Sultan’s subsidy per war of imperialism. The Turkish na- kilometer of railroad. However, the tion paid dearly for their folly. Had it politics of construction delays and not been for the foresight and mili- the fiscal insolvency of the Empire tary-diplomatic skills of the future are avoided, and there are no details Atatürk, the Turkish nation, almost of the Ottoman Public Debt Admin- certainly, would have vanished in the istration atop the elaborate Capitula- gambling casino which was the First tions system. World War in the Middle East. Vital questions remain unanswered: Why was the railway still unfinished The Ottoman Empire: in 1914? How could a bankrupt Sul- The Classical Age 1300-1600 tanate defeat the British in India, Egypt, and free the Muslim Middle Written by the eminent Turkish his- East? Why were all tax revenues con- torian some 50 years ago, this classic trolled by the European imperialist work is still relevant. It is an excellent powers? The Sultan entered the War read of the Ottoman Empire at its financially and militarily dependent best, in the Classical Age. Reprinted on the Emperor. by Phoenix, İnalcık’s study meticu- lously explains the Ottoman state- Pan-Islamic ideology is covered but craft at its zenith. lacks a Turkish perspective. Why did the Sultan fail so miserably as Caliph, This is not a book devoted to war and while the British and French suc- conquest: These topics are summa- cessfully recruited tens of thousands rized and disposed of in Part One, in of Muslim soldiers from India and the first 55 pages of the book when North Africa to fight the Ottoman the Ottoman state transformed it- armies in the sands of the Middle self from a ‘frontier’ principality to East? Was it simply Cemal Paşa’s bru- world power, the superpower ruling tal policies in Damascus that turned much of Europe and the Balkans, the Sheriff of Mecca into secret plot- North Africa and all of the Middle ting with Lawrence of Arabia? Mc- East. By 1600, conquests were com- Meekin underestimates oil politics in pleted, limits of territorial expansion the Mesopotamian campaign and the reached. Sultan Mehmet, the con- Sykes-Picot partition plans. queror of Byzantium, built the de- finitive Empire, a worthy successor Despite these limitations, McMeekin’s to Eastern Rome; Yavuz Selim, the study is a welcome contribution, victor over Mamelukes, elevated the shedding much light on particularly Sultanate into a Calif-Emperor, and Arab and Zionist politics in the twi- Suleyman I, the Lawgiver, created his 2020 Fall 255 REVIEW ARTICLE OZAY MEHMET man-made Kanun, codified the land prevailed. Christian boys, converted tenure, fiscal system and built the in- to Islam and raised for total obedi- stitutions of a superpower. ence to the Sultan, excelled in mili- tary or administrative fields, operat- The key to the Ottoman’s success as ing in constant competition with the a world power was the home-made Anatolian beys. Meritorious service merit system. It was an Ottoman carried rewards of fame and fortune version of Darwinian survival of the distributed by the Sultan. Success was fittest, prowess both in military and the ultimate test. Failure meant to administrative areas. Religion or shame and immediate removal, often ethnicity did not matter. Rank, title, beheading. In this system, no class and dress code, symbols like horse- of aristocracy (rich families, land- tails and headwear, (described at owning or trade-based) could emerge length especially in Chapter 12) were because no power could be tolerated, primarily for the show in ritual and that could potentially challenge the ceremony. The system was a one- absolute Sultan. Survival of the fittest man rule. All subjects, Muslim, Jew, also applied to succession, justified by or Christian, were equal, the Sul- the rules of fratricide, and intended tan’s kul, effectively slaves, all earthly to avoid civil war amongst competing possessions as well as the life of the sons of the Sultan. subject, belonged to the Sultan. Only the best, determined by long and rig- At its height, the Ottoman Em- orous education and training, rose to pire was the center of global trade. the top. These Kapıkulları, the privi- Part three is the most revealing part leged kuls waiting at the Gate of Fe- of İnalcık’s book. Wonderful pictures licity for Sultan’s grace, stayed there of global power are displayed de- so long as, by skill and performance, picting wealth and high culture (pp. they maintained the Sultan’s confi- 132-133). When Sultan Mehmet con- dence. Loyalty, always confirmed by quered İstanbul, its population was a winning for the Sultan, safeguarded mere thirty to forty thousand souls. survival, moving up the ladder in a Within a couple of decades, the Con- labyrinth of hierarchy at the Sultan’s queror has managed “to transform will. Duty was a constant struggle, a İstanbul into the world’s greatest cap- job well done earned rewards. Los- ital” (p. 140). ing once meant removal and often by beheading, in the case of members The Ottoman engine of growth was of the House of Osman, a bloodless international trade. Trade enriched death by the bowstring. the Empire and increased tax reve- nues. Money was the lifeblood of the In this multinational Empire, the entire system. It paid the Janissaries, Sultan ruled in absolute power over army and navy, the public servants, two sources of talent: the Devşirme civil and religious officials, and, of system and the Türkmen/Anatolian course, the central and provincial aristocracy.
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