A WILD SHEEP CHASE ACROSS ANATOLIA IN 1939

Today’s Zaman
Dec 2 2009
Turkey

On the eve of World War II Frenchman Francois Balsan, in his own
words a "buyer of wool for a very important textile firm," set out
from Istanbul for the eastern provinces of Turkey.

Balsan was very fortunate to receive permission from the Turkish
Government to visit the eastern borderlands of Turkey in that period,
as he had been told in an initial enquiry to the Turkish Consulate
in Paris that "regarding the visit … to the Van district, I hasten
to inform you that … the districts detailed in your letter are
incorporated in a prohibited area." Republican Turkey was naturally
suspicious of representatives of imperialist France who, following the
defeat of the Ottoman Turks in World War I, had sought to incorporate
parts of southeastern Anatolia into their overseas possessions. What’s
more, the eastern provinces had been rocked by a series of rebellions
by the region’s dominant ethnic group, the Kurds. The last and most
serious, in the mountainous Alevi Kurdish district of Dersim (modern
Tunceli), had only just been quelled.

Within a couple of days, Balsan and his wife, accompanied now by the
enthusiastic Setke Bey, were on a train bound for remote Elazıg. The
Frenchman was not enamored with the Anatolian landscape, ‘pretty
though it is most of the way, it’s all pretty much of a muchness’

Balsan’s firm saw Anatolia as a source of wool for "uniform cloth"
which, in the months leading up to the outbreak of World War II, was
in very short supply. Turkey, with an ultra-protectionist economy,
was in desperate need of foreign currency. Money talks, and a few
months after his initial enquiries Balsan learned that not only had
"the Turkish Government agreed" but that he would be given a "guide
provided by the government … to smooth out all complications in
the military areas." So confident was the Frenchman of success that
his wife, Marie-Laure "at once decided to accompany me." Balsan’s
account of his travels, "The Sheep and the Chevrolet: A journey through
Kurdistan," would go on to win him the prestigious "Prix Gallois 1945
of the Societe de Geographie de France."

Photo: Akdamar Church, Van.

Capitals old and new

The couple reached Ä°stanbul in style, on the Simplon-Orient Express.

But Balsan leaves us with few impressions of one of the world’s
greatest cities, saying, "I would not be so foolhardy as to attempt
to describe Ä°stanbul; after [Pierre] Loti and [Claude] Farrere
it would be presumptuous." He spends rather more time on the city
which had replaced Ä°stanbul as capital of the new republic, Ankara,
which he reached on the overnight train. The station he describes
as "constructed in the cubist style and furnished with every modern
amenity" and expressed his admiration for a city where "the size and
length of the avenues planted with trees already well-grown were on
a scale with the buildings, a little too vast for my taste but most
effective when viewed as a whole." But Balsan was not here to admire
Ankara’s fine modern architecture but to chase sheep, and soon found
himself face to face with the director of "Zootechnical and Veterinary
Services," who told him that "we have chosen as your guide one of
our youngest and most brilliant veterinary officers, Setke Bey."

Kebabs and a Chevrolet Within a couple of days, Balsan and his wife,
accompanied now by the enthusiastic Setke Bey, were on a train
bound for remote Elazıg. The Frenchman was not enamored with the
Anatolian landscape, "pretty though it is most of the way, it’s all
pretty much of a muchness." He was more struck by the impact the
railroad had on what was then a very remote, rural region, writing:
"The great stations of Caesarea [Kayseri], Sivas and Malatya were
scenes of animation alive with chatter. The passing through of the
train was an event, the Messenger of the Republic; people came to
see it even if they had no one to meet."

Despite the presence of Setke Bey, the travelers were the objects of
suspicion in Elazıg, with both the police and gendarme scrutinizing
their travel documents doubtfully. To compound matters, the hotel was
a "regular heat and fly-trap" where the owner received them with "a
suspicious affability" and the smell of the evening meal, mutton kebab,
overpowering. Still, things improved the next day with the arrival
of the car which would take the travelers on their East Anatolian
sheep chase "a magnificent Chevrolet shining like a wardrobe mirror"
— and its driver, Halil.

A new order

The road east from Elazıg was awful, with "gaping trenches a yard
wide" but the countryside, then with the harvest in full swing,
looked, to Balsan’s practiced eye, prosperous. He attributed this in
part to Ataturk’s reforms, noting, "It should not be forgotten how
the Ghazi’s legislation has assisted agriculture. Tithes, consisting
more than a third of the imperial revenue, were abolished in 1925. The
new taxes that replaced them are levied on income, not on the area
of land farmed, and the old animal taxes have been reduced by about
thirty five percent."

The Frenchman was aware that the region he was entering, then
predominantly Kurdish in character, had, until the deportations of
World War I, also been inhabited by Armenian Christians. He mentioned
this to the zealous young Setke Bey, who replied, "The elimination
of the Armenians was both salutary and urgent. Even their name should
no longer have any significance. All memory of them, their monuments,
every trace should disappear! The new order desires it!" But Balsan was
a pragmatist, and although he wrote, "I was too honest to conceal that
I was, to say the least, concerned at the drastic solution applied
to the Armenians," he went on to say: "I doubt whether the Armenian
case actually deserves the pity with which it is normally reviewed
in Europe. Why taunt the modern Turks with the subject?"

Setke was rather more sympathetic to the Kurds, telling Balsan: "We
have been driving through Kurdistan ever since Elazik [Elazıg]. They
have given a lot of trouble but they are a fine people."

Photo: The Harput Castle in Elazıg.

Even today few travelers take the road from Elazıg via Palu to
Bingöl.

Impressed by Palu’s remote but attractive situation on the Murad,
a major tributary of the Euphrates, Balsan wrote, "I was sorry to
leave the old Turkish houses of Palu; they have preserved the true
cachet of the imperial age, of which Ä°stanbul has been bereft by
fires and reconstruction." Here also the Frenchman witnessed the
social engineering that marked the early years of the republic, as
the modern-looking houses he saw roundabout were those of Pomaks,
Bulgarian Muslims forced to leave their homeland when the former
Ottoman province won its independence in the early years of the
20th century. They were given houses here, almost certainly on
vacated Armenian land, to dilute the "Kurdish nationalism" which
"was particularly rife around here." In fact it was in Palu that
the leader of the first major Kurdish revolt in 1925, Sheikh Said,
made a last-stand against the Turkish army.

Photo: The Church of St. Bartolemos, Albayrak.

Onto Lake Van

The party now drove on towards Lake Van. Balsan was delighted to see
flamingoes and pelicans on the Murad and, deciding to wade across the
river, found himself walking on a veritable bed of terrapins. After
lodging in a government guesthouse in MuÅ~_ they headed down to the
vast, blue and alkaline expanse of Lake Van. The town of Tatvan,
at the western end of the lake, now boasts several multi-storey
hotels and a new shopping mall complete with bowling alley and
cinema. At that time the sole, bungalow-style hotel was brand new
and the town occupied by "a small garrison" of soldiers. To Balsan,
the atmosphere of this Kurdish village with its brand-new Turkish
veneer was "thoroughly colonial."

They reached the provincial capital of Van by its beautiful
southern shore, though all the Frenchman could find to say about the
10th-century Armenian island church of Akdamar, situated en route
and one of Turkey’s most sublime sites, was "as the exterior of the
profaned temple seemed to be intact, we could only suppose that the
interior had been pillaged." In Van they lodged at a semi-official
institution, the Sports Club, opposite the then shiny new town hall.

They visited the Rock of Van, famed for its Urartian tombs and
inscriptions, and swam in the soda waters of the lake, which Balsan
described rather unfairly as "an unpleasant experience. …The waves
were curiously sticky. They had no tonic effect like seawater."

Photo: Lake Van.

End of the chase

The party then headed south towards Hakkari. As they wound up in to
the mountains in search of sheep on their summer pastures, the car
radiator boiled over several times and it had to be pushed up steep
gradients and out of rutted tracks. Eventually they found themselves
above a vast yayla (upland) and Balsan wrote, "Was this the goal of
my dreams — the phantom I had tracked for months, over interminable
miles." It seemed so and soon the travelers were receiving traditional
hospitality from a Kurdish notable called Bey Nafi, in a black-goat
hair tent surrounded by the bleating of countless sheep. They were
3,000 meters above sea level, with mountains soaring a further 1,000
meters all around them. Nafi, had, by his own reckoning, some 15,000
sheep. Balsan was fascinated by the timeless way of life on the
yayla, with women milking the flocks twice-daily, weaving kilims and
preparing the evening meal. Of the women he wrote: "We stood watching
the cooks, who stared back unveiled. Ataturk need have decreed none
of his Draconian emancipation for these regions."

After returning to Van, the party pushed on south to BaÅ~_kale, from
where they planned to head east to the Iranian border. En route they
paused to explore the remains of the Armenian church of St Bartolemos
at Albayrak. This fine ninth-century Armenian church still stands
today, despite the efforts of the Turkish garrison who, Setke delighted
in informing Balsan, were "a bit short of explosives. But whenever they
can get their hands on any … the cathedral gets its share of them."

A long journey home — to war

Unfortunately for the French couple, their valiant efforts to enter
Iran (and those of Setke and Halil) were to prove in vain. A couple
of over-zealous customs officials guarding the godforsaken Khansur
Pass between the two countries refused to let them exit unless they
left behind the sum of money (250 pounds) which they had declared on
entering Turkey — and was registered as such in their passports.

Their adventures were far from over though. Returning to Van, Setke
informed them that "there’s no doubt about it; it’s war. All the
bridges are blown." They were forced to make their way to Trabzon,
on the eastern Black Sea of Turkey, then return by ship to Ä°stanbul.

Ironically, their fellow passengers included 4,000 sheep! Finally
the couple made it back to France and Balsan concluded his adventures
with the words, "Not long after that, and with the same glasses that
had surveyed Khansur, I was seeking my regiment’s objectives in the
hills of Lorraine."