Pounds for Gazi: Charity and Sovereignty in Proto-Republican Turkey

Chris Gratien, Georgetown University

Special thanks to Seçil Yılmaz for submitting this document:

Source: Türk Kızılay Arşivi 18/167

The year was 1921. Over the period following World War I, Anatolia had descended into turmoil. The Allies had occupied the former Ottoman Empire and with the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920, a somewhat ambiguous partition plan for Anatolia was approved promising regions to Britain, France, Italy, Greece and possible nation states of Armenia and Kurdistan (click for map). The Ottoman state was no longer a sovereign entity. What remained of its sovereignty was a region of inner Anatolia surrounding Ankara that was to be the new Turkey. With Istanbul under occupation following surrender to the Allies, the nationalist forces under the command of Mustafa Kemal waged a war for independence from the interior. Months before the Treaty of Sèvres, the nationalists had established their own assembly in Ankara. Over the next few years, as the war continued on three fronts, the Ankara government would incrementally assume control over the former ministries and institutions and the Ottoman state.

This document concerns the transfer of a few thousand British pounds but reflects the symbolic transfer of something much greater. It is a letter from the Egyptian Red Crescent found in the archives of the Turkish Red Crescent in Ankara. Before World War I, the Red Cross and Red Crescent societies that we know today were not formally joined by any institutional framework, though they often coordinated with each other. The Egyptian Red Crescent (الهلال الأحمر) had been formed in 1911, approved as a non-governmental organization by the Khedieve of Egypt under the British Protectorate. The Ottoman Red Crescent (Hilal-i Ahmer or Kızılay since 1935) had been formed much earlier in 1868 on the model of the Red Cross societies established in 1863 primarily out of a movement to provide battlefield assistance to sick and wounded soldiers during a post-Crimean War era in which war promised to be all the more bloody. During World War I, the Red Crescent played an active role in providing medical assistance to the Ottoman army as well as dealing with prisoners of war in the Ottoman Empire and following the cases of Ottoman prisoners of war held elsewhere. However, with the Red Crescent being based in Istanbul and linked primarily the Ottoman government, the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire threatened the effectiveness of this institution in providing relief within the context of the National Struggle of the Ankara government and a state of civil war throughout Anatolia.

This November 1921 letter addressed to the Red Crescent in Istanbul (الأستانة) from the Egyptian Red Crescent reflects a step in the process by which the nationalists came to be recognized as the legitimate government in Anatolia. It authorizes the transfer of five donations, each one amounting to £1000, intended as relief for the victims of the war in Anatolia. Interestingly, it asks that they be sent to "the state of Marshall Gazi Mustafa Kemal Pasha (دولة المشير الغازي مصطفى كمال باشا)" specifically. Support for the nationalists from Egypt, which itself had witnessed a brief and unsuccessful attempt at national independence under the Wafd party led by Saad Zaghloul following World War I, was an indication of de facto recognition of the Kemalists as the sovereign rulers of Turkey. The Ottoman sultanate would only be abolished a year later in November of 1922, and the Treaty of Lausanne in July of 1923 was the final step towards international recognition of the Grand National Assembly as the sovereign government of the Turkish Republic.

Here is a complete Arabic transcription of the letter:

حضرة صاحب السعادة رئيس جمعية الهلال الأحمر العثماني بالاستانة:

أتشرف بأن أرسل لسعادتكم طية خمس تحاويل بمبلغ خمسة آلاف جنيه انجلتيري كل منها بمبلغ ألف جنيه انجلتيري من هذه التحاويل ثلاثة على البنك الأهلي المصري نمرة 99305 ونمرة 99306 ونمرة 99307 والاثنان الآخيران على بنك الكريدي ليونية نمرة 43732 ونمرة 43733 مؤرخة في 16 نوفمبر 1921 وهي نرسلها إليكم تتفضلوا بتوصيلها لدولة المشير الغازي مصطفى كمال باشا بأنقرة إعانة لمنكوبي حرب الأناضول وفقاً للاتفاق السابق بين جميعتكم وجميعة الهلال الأحمر المصري وإننا نرجو سعادتكم ان تتفضلوا بإخطارنا تلغرافياً عقب استلامكم التحاويل مباشرةً حتى نوافي سعادتكم بإرسال باقي المتجمع من الإعانات لذمة أولئك المنكوبين كما وأننا نرجوكم التكرم علينا بارسال إيصال من دولة المشير الغازي مصطفى كما باشا باستلامه هذه المبالغ.

وقد وصلنا تلغرافكم رقم 10 نوفمر 1921 كما وأنه وصلنا ايفا افادة سعادتكم الورخة في 12 تشرين ثاني 1337 وايصال الاستلام ولا يسعنا ازاء ما تبذلونه من الهمة في التضافر معنا على مساعدة أولئك المنكوبين إلا ابداء مزيد الشكر والممنونية

وتفضلوا بقبول فائق الإحترام

رئيس جمعية الهلال الأحمر المصري

عبد الرحيم 

Red Crescent

fundraising