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

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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

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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

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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 military 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 revenues. 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. Machiavellian power government, atop of which the Sultan

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ruled supreme. Prosperity emerged In Europe, trade originally was con- from trade and markets. trolled by families such as Lorenzo de Medici in Florence. They competed The Ottoman trading system was with other families from Venice and global. Spices came from the Orient; Genoa, but gradually chartered com- Chinese merchandise moved along panies, like the Levant Company, the Silk Route. The China trade was emerged. Profits from the Ottoman linked to the Black Sea trading ports trade system accumulated in the like Kaffa, Azov, Taman, and Trabzon. West. Trade surplus first financed These trading ports also served the the Italian Renaissance, subsequently Muscovy trade. Beyond the Caspian the rebirth of “mercantilist Western Sea, Samarkand and Central Asia states” (p. 138). After 1492, the Atlan- were trading hubs linking the Otto- tic economy emerged. man and Oriental worlds. Wherever trade flourished, prosperity financed The Age of Discovery, associated with high culture and learning. All trad- Columbus, Vasco de Gama, and Ma- ing routes converged on İstanbul, but gellan, led to a global shift of world Bursa, Konya, and cities in the Bal- trade from the Ottoman Mediterra- kans, Crimea, Levantine, and all over nean to the European-controlled At- the Empire shared in gains of trade. lantic. The flooding of Aztec gold and India, under the Moguls, partici- silver to Portugal and Spain caused pated in the Ottoman trading system, a ‘price revolution’ spreading to Ot- through Afghanistan, Persia, and the toman lands (p. 139). Inflation and Caucuses. African ports on the Red frequent currency debasement fol- Sea, managed slave trading and com- lowed, delivering the Ottoman trad- modities, were linked with the Ot- ing system a mortal blow from which toman cities like Cairo, Aleppo, and the Empire never recovered. Under Damascus. the Capitulations, the Ottoman state finally went bankrupt. Ottoman merchants, Muslim, Jew, and Christian, all partnered and At the zenith of the Ottoman Em- prospered in commercial networks pire, in 1553 Suleyman killed his son extending to Europe. Ottoman arts Mustafa, the ablest successor was and crafts were the envy of the world. lost. Harem politics began and the By the mid-16th century, France, Hol- long period of decline of the Otto- land, and then England followed the mans followed. Cyprus, conquered in Italian states in seeking trade privi- 1571, marked the last great military leges in Ottoman lands. A picture in achievement of the Empire. the book (No. 12) shows a European ambassador, held up by two door- keepers in the presence of the Sultan, Nostalgia for the Empire lest he should shake and fall in God’s shadow. That reflected Ottoman su- Hakan Yavuz’s book, Nostalgia for perpower status. the Empire: The Politics of Neo-Ot-

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tomanism, is about an Empire lost ernizing orientation” of the Kemalist and its traumatic impact on Turkish Republic (p. 2). The rejection was a consciousness. A sense of loss, nos- wake-up call, forcing Turks to turn talgia for past glory vanished, is very to their endogenous roots of identity. much ingrained in modern Turkish For most Europeans, conditioned by identity. “Bizler hüzünlü milletiz” their Christian heritage, Turks were (We are a nation of melancholy) (p. always at a ‘gate’ in Europe, Vienna in 2). Hüzün is the key, a longing for a 1683 or Brussels in 1987. birthplace, rebellion against modernity, or personal dissatisfaction with Such internal and external forces the human condition. have shaped contemporary ideas of Neo-Ottomanism. One cannot re- Yavuz borrowed the idea of Hüzün move the past from the present. Ot- from the great novelist Hamdi Tan toman/Islamic heritage was suddenly pınar, the author of The Time Regula- taken out of the Kemalist closet and tion Institute, the Turkish version of (re)embraced as an indispensable George Orwell, an attempt to reshape part of the Turkish soul today. Most consciousness in some crazy Freud- Turks today feel a sense of national ian experiment. Tanpınar’s anti-hero, insecurity, remembering how close Ayarcı (Regulator), is a psychoana- their homeland came to extinction at lyst gone mad in the new Kemalist the end WWI. Yavuz calls this inse- Republic, dedicated to constructing curity the “Sevres Syndrome (p. 37).” a new citizen in total subservience to an authoritarian state. With the end of Westernization, turn- ing to one’s roots, history and heritage Yavuz’s Neo-Ottomanism is a per- is natural. In Turkey, de-linking from sonal account. He experienced ten- Europe has been a gradual process. sions first in his childhood years in In 1960, after the Menderes years, Bayburt in eastern Anatolia, attempt- Ankara still aimed at closer integra- ing to reconcile Kemalist modernity tion with Europe, signing a Protocol with Ottoman/Islamic heritage. Dur- with Brussel which targeted eventual ing his university career in the U.S., Turkish membership of what became he observed the Bosnian genocide the EU. At the same time, a Turkish- and the destruction of the last Otto- Islamic synthesis was underway, and man community in Europe. an early attempt was made at “Turki- fication of Ottoman history” (p. 55). Two specific elements have shaped Yavuz’s view of Neo-Ottomanism. Neo-Ottomanism as a political First, it represents “a pluralistic view agenda dates back to Turgut Özal, the of Turkishness, a weapon against Ke- neo-liberal reformer in Turkish poli- malist secularism (p. 13).” Second, tics, who surprised Turks and Euro- the EU’s rejection of Turkey’s mem- peans alike with his sudden applica- bership application, demonstrating tion to Brussel back in 1987. In fact, the dead-end of the top-down “West- Özal himself can be considered as an

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early proponent of Neo-Ottomanism. brutal execution of Arab intellectuals For Özal, “a Turk is someone who is when he served as the Sultan’s Gover- Muslim by religion and an Ottoman nor in Syria. by shared history and memories” (p. 110). His political success stemmed from coalitions with Anatolian en- Conclusion trepreneurs, who eventually became Erdoğan’s supporters. These Anato- The three books in review here, have lian bourgeois possessed their own a common thread: Shared history is culture and their own Kurdish, Al- multi-dimensional, subject to differ- evi, and ethnic traditions, steeped ent interpretations. During its 600 in Ottoman-Islamic heritage, very years of existence, the Ottoman Em- alive still with Sufi sects such as the pire underwent numerous phases: In Nakshibendi, Nurcu, and others, its Classical Age, all subject people which Atatürk had disbanded but and countries shared in trade-based could not eradicate. Yavuz’s Chapter prosperity, as clearly documented 3 gives a rich account of these sects, by İnalcık’s masterpiece. At the including their impact not only on bloody end of the Empire in 1918, as politics but on popular arts, litera- McMeekin’s book has shown, Otto- ture, and media. The Gülen Move- manism was buried deep, in hands of ment, as it was called such by then, the inept Young Turks. Only the mir- ingrained itself within this popular acle of Kemalist ideology saved the culture and, by the time of the 2016 Turks. Yavuz shows that Erdoğan’s coup attempt, FETÖ (Fetullahçı Terör Ottomanism is but one variant only, Örgütü, Fetullahist Terror Organiza- and his colleagues, and others, have tion) had become a real threat to the different ideas. constitutional order. Romantic Neo-Ottomanism amongst Yavuz makes it quite clear that there the rank-and-file Turks is an amusing are many versions of Neo-Ottoman- exercise for the Turks themselves, as ism, discussing, besides Özal, Er- they watch those Turkish soap op- bakan, and numerous others. Each eras, now a rage internationally as Sultan had his brand of ideology. well. The House of Osman died be- Erdoğan may champion Abdülha- cause the age of dynasties had passed. mid, sharing his mistrust of Europe. Now, European imperialism is pass- ing. The age of hydrocarbons is end- Little wonder, too, that Neo-Otto- ing as Green Energy emerges, a topic manism, as a Turkish foreign policy, extensively documented in our recent has met with such firm resistance in book (Mehmet and Yorucu, 2020). former Ottoman lands in the Balkans and the Arab countries. Understand- On the demise of the Ottoman Em- ably, people’s memories are short and, pire, the single best book is still Da- even then, only the worst is often re- vid Fromkin’s masterpiece, A Peace membered; for example, Cemal Paşa’s to End All Peace (1990). As Fromkin

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explains, the Ottoman’s “wartime created the modern Middle East, performance was surprisingly suc- while the imperialists controlled all cessful. Engaged in a three-front war, the oil wealth. the Ottoman Empire defeated Britain and France in the west in 1915-16, In war, winners take all and write the crushed the advancing armies of Brit- history. In WWI, the winners took ish India in the east at the same time, all the booty; they denied prosperity and in the north held off the Russian not only to Kemalist Turkey (as in the invasion forces (p. 215).” case of Mosul) but no less shamefully, they exploited and impoverished the What killed the Ottoman dynasty Arabs, especially the Palestinians. was betrayal from within, not from A few dynasties, like those in Saudi one, but two sources: (i) The Arab Re- Arabia and the Gulf, dependent on volt, led by the Sheriff Hussein of the imperialists, monopolized their share House of Saud, and (ii) Cemal Paşa, of the oil wealth. the Sultan’s Governor in Damascus who came very close to materializing his nefarious plot to declare himself Refrences the new Sultan. The French and Brit- David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall ish used him too, while they carved of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the the vast, hydrocarbon riches of Mus- Modern Middle East, (New York: Avon Books, 1990). lim lands for themselves, drawing Ozay Mehmet and Vedat Yorucu, Modern Geo- lines in the sand. The notorious se- politics of Eastern Mediterranean Hydrocarbons cret wheeling and dealing known as in an Age of Energy Transformation, (Cham: the infamous Skyes-Picot agreement, Springer, 2020).

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