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On active service in eastern Turkey: 1918-1921

Toby Rawlinson was no ordinary traveller. In 1918, following the
defeat of Ottoman Turkey in World War I, this British army colonel was
one of the officers tasked by Britain to ensure that the terms of the
recently signed armistice were adhered to in the Caucasus and Eastern
Anatolia.

It was mission impossible. Britain, exhausted by the four-year
conflict, lacked both the resources and the will to enforce a largely
unwilling population, inhabiting what was then a remote,
underdeveloped part of the globe, to submit to its
demands. Nonetheless, Rawlinson’s memoir of his post-wartime
experiences, `Adventures in the Near East,’ paints a vivid picture of
a Turkey undergoing the transition from empire to republic.

Across Europe to Ýstanbul

Rawlinson left Britain in mid-February, crossing a wintry Europe in a
`coupe-lit’ train compartment shared with a French medical officer, a
Transylvanian bishop and a Russian general. In Salonika (now
Thessalonica in northern Greece), where he changed trains, his machine
guns and suitcase went missing and were only found with much
difficulty. The 61-hour journey onto Ýstanbul (which he refers to
by its old name of Constantinople, or `Constant,’ British-forces slang
for the imperial capital) was hellish. There was no glass in the
windows of the packed compartments; the weather was either cold,
snowy, rainy or a mixture of all three. Worse was the indignity of
having the contents of a tin of condensed milk `horribly sticky stuff
it is too’ leak all over him one night from the netting rack above
him. The next morning there was a `somewhat animated conversation’
between Rawlinson and the fellow-officer who had placed it there.

Ýstanbul, then under British occupation, impressed Rawlinson when
viewed from the Sea of Marmara. `The situation of the city is
certainly unique throughout the world … it offers a spectacle of
unrivalled splendour … and appears, when the rays of the setting sun
strike its countless golden mosques and minarets, to be a veritable
city of palaces.’ The reality on the ground he found less attractive,
though. `On landing … the disillusionment is both sudden and
complete. Filth and squalour are to be seen everywhere, and the city
of palaces … becomes a collection of hovels and ruins, cropping up
from a sea of mud.’ Although the old walled quarter of the city
disappointed him, Pera (modern Beyoðlu) was more to his
taste. `Here are fine, though steep, streets, pavements, electric
lights and trams, fine buildings, all the evidence of prosperity and
enterprise which distinguish a modern European capital.’

>From the Caucasus to Trabzon

In early March he took a steamer from Ýstanbul to Batumi (in modern
Georgia), then a train onto the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. The train
was guarded by a hundred British infantrymen, as `the country was
infested by bands of Bolshevik and other classes of brigands capable
of any atrocity.’ In Tbilisi, Rawlinson picked up two Ford cars, which
he quickly kitted out with the guns he’d brought from Britain, and
hand picked 14 men to accompany him on his mission. After a brief
foray into the much-disputed and snow-bound province of Kars (now a
part of Turkey), Rawlinson returned to Batumi and took a ship to
Trebizond (modern Trabzon). His mission now was to cross the Pontic
Alps — the lofty mountain range paralleling the eastern Black Sea
coast of Turkey — and liaise with his commander-in-chief in the
strategically crucial northeastern Anatolian city of Erzerum
(Erzurum). The city was the base of the Turkish 9th Army and, under
the terms of the 1918 armistice, the British were supposed to oversee
the demobilization and disarmament of these (and indeed all Ottoman
Turkish) troops. But although Rawlinson was armed with a `firman’
issued by the sultan to ensure the Turkish military complied with his
requests, the Turkish nationalist revolution was, unofficially,
already underway — making his task nigh on impossible given the
limited resources at his disposal.

Over the Pontic Alps to Erzerum

Although it was by now mid-April, the famous 2,010-meter Zigana Pass
was still snow-bound. Today a fine asphalt road and tunnel have tamed
the pass, a mere 110 kilometers from Trabzon, but it took Rawlinson
and his men a day and a half to cross. He was captivated by the view
from the top of Zigana. `We had our first view of Anatolia, and a very
marvelous and beautiful one it was. In the bright morning sun range
after range of snow-capped mountains appeared on every side. …The
impression produced by this remarkable scene was of an incredibly
rocky and rugged country, of precipices and narrow, deep valleys.’
Descending the far side, Rawlinson’s team bivouacked in Gumuþhane,
the next day crossing the Vavok Pass (Vavuk Pass) to Bayburt. Ahead of
them lay the most notorious pass of all, the Kop (2,302 meters), where
`no winter season ever passes without many lives being lost … from
exposure.’ New snow, a savage wind and the steep slope made progress
up the Kop painstaking. Eventually they unloaded their fleet of six
cars and commandeered some local Turkish troops and 40 oxen to help
drag them up the slope. At last they summited and `enjoyed a view
which is unsurpassable in any country.’

Given the ravages of war, its high, exposed position and the fact
that he came down with dysentery here, it is unsurprising that
Rawlinson had a somewhat jaundiced view of Erzerum. `It is a
particularly uninviting spot, which no one who is familiar with that
country would ever voluntarily select as his residence. The wind there
blows with terrific force, and piercing cold defies all furs. … No
tree or shrub of any sort can be found within over 50 miles, either to
afford fuel or shelter of any kind, and the words `dismal,’ `dreary,’
`desolate’ and `damnable’ suggest themselves irresistibly as a concise
description of the whole locality.’ He did, however, get to meet
Kazým Karabekir, who would go on to become a hero of the Turkish
War of Independence. He described Karabekir as `the most genuine
example of a first-class Turkish officer that it has been my good
fortune to meet … although it was my fate to be his prisoner for a
long time … he has never ceased to command my respect as an
individual, and my appreciation as a thoroughly competent Commander.’
`Mustapha Kemal Pasha’ arrived in Erzerum whilst Rawlinson was there,
and if anything he was even more impressed by the man who would
eventually carve the Turkish Republic from the carcass of the Ottoman
Empire, writing, `A man of great strength of character and very
definite and practical views as to the rightful position of his people
in the comity of nations … no seeker after personal fame or
advancement, he is imbued with a deep sense of duty which causes him
to place his country’s interests before all others.’

On the border

For the next four months Rawlinson traveled around the unstable
frontier zone between the incipient Armenian and Turkish
republics. Kars at that time (the spring of 1919) was under Armenian
control — a control sanctioned by the terms of the 1918
armistice. The Armenian commanders interviewed by Rawlinson were
insistent this permission made it an `absolute necessity that they
should disarm the Tartar [Turkish] Moslem population.’ This could only
by done by force and Rawlinson commented, with a feeling of
hopelessness, `This obviously led to fighting; and fighting, as
between Moslem and Armenian, of necessity led to massacres and
atrocities of all kinds.’ Rawlinson also met the local Kurdish tribal
chieftains, one of whom made it clear that `if it was decided (by the
victorious European powers) to endeavor to put them under Armenian
government, and if European troops were to support the Armenians, they
would evacuate the country with all their goods and herds, and go
bodily over to their kinsmen beyond the Turkish frontier.’ Like many
Britons of his period and upper-class, military background, Rawlinson
was enamored with the tribal Kurds; in the same way that Lawrence of
Arabia was with the Bedouin Arabs, calling them `the finest men it has
ever been my privilege to meet.’ He later, however, conceded `they are
brigands by descent as well as by inclination and training.’

Rawlinson was on the Armenian side of the frontier when he heard that
`the conference then proceeding at Erzerum, where has assembled
representatives of the Young Turkish Party … were organizing a
revolution with the eventual object of establishing a Turkish
Republic.’ He made haste to Erzerum and was received cordially by
Karabekir, and later by Kemal himself. He told him the outcome of the
conference — that a national `pact’ had been formed; aimed at ridding
Anatolia of the occupying allied forces and establishing an
independent Turkish state. Rawlinson’s task was hopeless, and went to
Sarýkamýþ, then under Armenian occupation, to rejoin his
men. He describes this remote East Anatolian town, which now boasts
one of Turkey’s best ski resorts, as thus, `This district … much
resembles some parts of Switzerland, the mountains being heavily
wooded and the valleys green and fertile.’ From Sarýkamýþ he
returned to Tbilisi by rail, then took an American destroyer from
Batumi to `Constant’ — and then, after debriefing, back to Britain.

Go back to Turkey, go straight to jail

Rawlinson, though, was not done with Turkey, nor it with him. An
interview with the Foreign Office in London left him with no doubt
that they were skeptical about his reports on the strength and
determination of the Turkish nationalists. Despite this, he was given
a new mission — to return to Anatolia and contact Mustafa Kemal
indirectly and find out what his real aims and objectives were. He
returned to `Constant’ by boat. His return to the east was delayed by
inclement weather and he `enjoyed several days of hunting with the
army hounds, and several rounds of golf on the links which had been
established on the hills to the north-west of Pera.’ Re-crossing the
passes between Trabzon and Erzerum in freezing winter conditions,
Rawlinson and his men reached their goal on Boxing Day and were put up
in a house belonging to the 9th Army — a house where `we were
destined afterwards to remain so long and suffer so severely.’ Victims
of political circumstance and diplomatic wrangling between the Allies
and the new de facto Turkish Republican government, Rawlinson and his
men ended up under house arrest, and then in prison, from March 1920
until October 1921.

In spite of his incarceration, Rawlinson, who had formed such a good
impression of fellow military men Kazým Karabekir and Mustafa
Kemal, wrote near the end of his memoirs: `I am … of the opinion
that the inevitable policy of our country must always be to establish
friendly relations with Turkey. … I had no idea of allowing our
experiences to be made use of by any anti-Turkish party.’ Rawlinson
later was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE)
for his sterling wartime service.